컬러마케팅에 있어서 한국인과 중국인의 청색에 대한 인식도 분석

An Analysis on Korean’s and Chinese’s Perception of Blue in Color Marketing

Purpose - This paper examined and analyzed the images that Korean and Chinese consumers prefer relative to the color blue. A total of 434 people, specifically, 189 Chinese and 245 Korean men and women with ages varying from 20 to 35 participated in this research. In investigating how Korean and Chinese perceive the color blue, the top 15 words with positive meanings and the top 15 words with negative meanings were selected. Design/Methodology/Approach - Hence, the 30 images for blue included trust, greatness, peace, fidelity, godlikeness, passivity, obscenity, devil-like, coldness, isolation, hope, imagination, academic, masculine, miracle, lowness, distant view, gloomy, lethargic, sickness, cleanliness, nobility, rational, practical, technology, poverty, ignore, pessimistic, surprise, unhappiness. These 30 selected words were then ranked according to what images the people of each country preferred. This paper also analyzed how much the difference in recognition for each word is significant. Findings - Specifically, Koreans chose cleanliness as the first thing that reminded them of blue, whereas the Chinese ranked it 13th and placed peace as their first choice. In second place to the fifth place, the Koreans chose images of masculinity, trust, coldness and coolness. It is notable that the image of peace, the first place for Chinese, only exists in the top five for Koreans. The second to fifth places from the top chosen by Chinese were images of imagination, nobility, hope, academic. On the other hand, these images were ranked as 9th, 11th, 8th, and 14th, respectively, by Koreans, indicating that the preferred images of Koreans and Chinese are different. Research Implications - Blue is a color that can appeal to both Korean and Chinese people. Hence, it is welcomed in various areas including fashion, home appliances, cleaning products, and beverages. Thus, blue is perfect for expressing futuristic and high-tech images.