Black Mermaid™ Marketing Tips 1 – How to Package Yourself

A few weeks ago Jozef and I attended a speaking conference, where we picked up a lot of useful advice and information about marketing products/services or yourself. One of the speakers, Joel Bauer, talked about the five most powerful clothes colour combinations you can wear to make a statement. We don't wish to make light of the historic US political events unfolding around us, but it was interesting when I went back with new eyes and new knowledge to some campaign footage from August 2008 to watch Barack Obama's Democratic party acceptance speech (see first YouTube clip below). I thought he looked absolutely incredible – fresh, energetic, polished and professional. In fact, his entire family looked radiant in their red, pink and black colour-coordinated outfits. Now this is interesting and certainly no accident ... why? Well, Barack Obama wore two of the key colours in his tie that Joel Bauer had talked about – red (the colour of passion and emotion) and pink (the colour of trust), which was set against a crisp white shirt which acts as a canvas under the black frame of his suit. Bauer said that marketing is basically "guessing and testing" and that hundreds of thousands (if not millions of dollars) had been spent determining the five most potent colours in marketing and sales. The intention therefore is to subconsciously influence our perception by packaging the person in a wardrobe that reflects our innate assumptions, so we in turn become more receptive to buying the product (in this case Obama) and the message being sold. Great stuff! It's very obvious now to us that Obama and his team were in fact benefiting from this market research. I do not think of it as manipulation but of great strategy to enhance his already well-established credibility and possibly to stamp and seal the deal. I wish I had known all this while the candidates had been on the campaign trail – it would have made of an interesting analysis of tactics. Oh, and what is noteworthy about this is that Obama is wearing the same suit and colours in his victory speech (see second YouTube clip below).

So if you want to learn more about the five most powerful colour combos, then here they are from the least to the most effective:

5. Blue on the inset of black (best used to indicate reliability and credibility especially in media interviews)

4. Red on the inset of black (best used to indicate emotion and passion)

3. Orange on the inset of black (best used to indicate vibrancy and excitement) 

2. Yellow on the inset of black (best used to indicate warmth)

1. Pink on the insert of black (best used to indicate trust and security).

Use this knowledge wisely in the comics world, oh great blog readers!