The Physics of Marketing — Newton’s Theory of Color

It never occurred to me that some­one invented the color wheel, but in fact Isaac New­ton did just that and more with his The­ory of Color.  New­ton used prisms to show that white light was actu­ally made by a com­bi­na­tion of the “ROY G BIV” col­ors of the rain­bow.  At that time there were vary­ing the­o­ries regard­ing color and light, and Newton’s asser­tion, which seems like com­mon knowl­edge today, was quite con­tro­ver­sial at the time he intro­duced it.

New­ton explained that objects appear to be a cer­tain color because of how they reflect light, rather than color being an inher­ent prop­erty of an object — A red apple reflects red light which is seen by the eye.  New­ton went on to place the col­ors on a wheel, where he could then illus­trate the con­cept that by com­bin­ing pri­mary col­ors in var­i­ous pro­por­tions, all other col­ors could be cre­ated.  This led to the idea of com­ple­men­tary col­ors such as blue and orange which when used together pro­vided max­i­mum contrast.

Newton’s the­ory of color has been stud­ied and refined over time and is often directly applied in mar­ket­ing though the design process.  Visit a graphic design stu­dio and color wheels abound with count­less shades and tones, which when com­bined cor­rectly, offer dra­matic visual appeal.  Who knew that graphic design had roots in physics?

So the big ques­tion becomes how to extend Newton’s the­ory into some broader anal­ogy about Marketing.

Here goes…

Okay, so sup­pose the mar­ket is equal to white light. Each com­pany has an abil­ity to use the com­po­nents of that light to reflect a given appear­ance.   Just as light can be bro­ken down into col­ors, Mar­ket­ing can be bro­ken down into cat­e­gories.  This tra­di­tion­ally has been rep­re­sented as the 4 P’s of Mar­ket­ing (Prod­uct, Price, Place, and Pro­mo­tion) — although many other mod­els exist.  For today, I will go with the trusted 4 P’s.

Mar­ket­ing seeks out new ways to com­bine col­ors to cre­ate some­thing of beauty and value for the con­sumer.  Some might like blue and orange (every­day low prices, no frills), oth­ers red and green (design and style).

Com­pa­nies are tasked with choos­ing the right mix of the col­ors they have to tell a unique story to the con­sumer.  If this story res­onates, i.e. the con­sumer per­ceives the col­ors to be dif­fer­ent and chooses them, the com­pany has a chance to suc­ceed. This is the idea of the Mar­ket­ing Mix.  What prod­ucts to sell?  How much to sell prod­ucts for?  How much atten­tion to focus on ser­vice?  How much to spend on adver­tis­ing?  Whether to open a store online in a shop­ping mall?  There are some com­bi­na­tions that work well, and some that result in ugly gray brown.

In total­ity all of these brands, all of the com­mer­cials, pro­mo­tions, chan­nels of dis­tri­b­u­tion, and avail­able prod­ucts com­bine to make the con­sumer mar­ket­place — white light.  Per­cep­tion is the prism by which the mar­ket is bro­ken down into seg­ments, and in the end con­sumer gets to choose their own favorite colors.

What do you think?  How can you apply Newton’s The­ory of Color to Mar­ket­ing?  Please share your the­o­ries and thougths by leav­ing a comment.