Cultural appropriation through color

- I've seen too many companies leave out color choices until the very last phase of their brand development. When marketing to a diverse audience, we need to be aware of the possibility of cultural appropriation through color. Color is a universal language but it can also symbolize different things among different cultures. I've lost count of how many times I've seen campaigns that are trying to appeal to the broad Hispanic market but the visuals used mainly relate to the Mexican culture. Generally speaking, when we refer to Hispanics this includes people from Spain and of Spanish speaking descent. However, this term doesn't include Brazilians or people of Portuguese descent, Latino, Latina, or what we are mostly using now is a term called Latinx. And this term is used to include all Latin American people including North, Central and South America. Understanding this difference is very important when aiming to reaching market that isn't primarily comprehensive Mexicans. I'm personally more aware of this because I'm Mexican, Venezuelan and Colombian. And I know my unique heritage can different from others from language to colors, to symbols and iconography. Another mistake I've witnessed in company branding, is using a country's flag as colors to the primary marketing direction. Marketing to Mexicans isn't about using green, white, and red along with maracas and sombreros. Please no more maracas and sombreros unless your primary and main market aims to connect with very specific community, you need to understand cultural differences across the global market. So instead look for commonalities behind the emotion of color. For example, turquoise, aqua or emerald represents compassion, faithfulness, love and spirituality which are common traits all over the world. Let's look at a final example of cultural appropriation through color. Time and again, I've witnessed the assumption that you need to use Rasta colors to market to black or African-American communities. Let's pause for a minute here. Yes, I did say Rasta colors because this is the terminology I've painfully had people use one too many times. We have recently made more progress in understanding cultural bias and appropriation, but there's still room for us to grow, especially when aligning our visuals to our verbal communication. A foreign born black person, like an African with Indian or central or even South American, may not feel the same cultural connection to the color black as an African-American may feel but suppose you want to connect black and African-American culture. In that case a warm golden yellow is a hue that could work depending on the brand context. And it's seen across both black and African-American cultures as a symbol of hope and generational strength. We all have deeply rooted connections to color and culture in our own ways and through our own heritage where we're not clear on that connection, make it a point to actively seek out partnerships with people who are familiar with the history of that particular community. When we embrace color and culture together, we need to look deeper into the meaning behind the colors used in the arts, textiles, architecture, and traditions. We can then form a better understanding of how colors can create connections among communities and support and honor culture.