Maxwell House Colors

Maxwell House CafÐ"© Collection

I chose to work with the print ad for Maxwell House CafÐ"© Collection. I found the ad in People magazine. Their main colors were deep, rich browns, creams, and fades to black.

They picked this color in my opinion because they want to strike a cord with consumers and give them the feeling that they want to the product Maxwell house is trying to promote. People associate those colors with warmth, relaxation, and a nice, freshly brewed cup of delicious quality coffee. It is used to set the mood of a coffee drinker. People generally have a cup of coffee as part of their routine, or simply to relax (even though it's effects are not very relaxing).

I think that using a different color, like red, blue, or green for example, would not extract the same emotion from people, nor would it give consumers the color association of a good cup of coffee with the advertisement.

The color scheme says that if you want to be relaxed, sexy and solo, and have a good cup of coffee, if you think you might want to be in a relaxing environment similar to the one in this ad, then buy Maxwell House CafÐ"© Collection.

I think they did it to set the mood and tone of the ad. Although it is aesthetically pleasing to look at, I believe that they just wanted to set the mood of making you want coffee and being relaxed and choosing Maxwell House.

Competitors, such as Juan Valdez's Colombian Coffee, use similar colors for their advertising. It makes sense, seeing as coffee ranges from black to light brown or creamy. If you want to get people in the mood for coffee, those are the key colors to use. The fact that Maxwell House is using this color does not separate them at all. The sophisticated feel of the ad, however, does.

All the colors previously mentioned are good for this ad. Anything in the range of Black, shades of brown, and cream all become associated in people's minds with coffee. I would consider those a "family" of colors.