Christina Hall explains how brands can intentionally signal that they’re low-priced or value-oriented through visual elements (colors, playful styling) and contrasts being perceived as "cheap" versus "affordable," using TEMU’s bright orange, playful, slightly childish aesthetic as an example that communicates low price and lower product-quality expectations.
Chapters
If a brand wants to appear cheaper, they can use visual elements to appear cheaper. But I want to make sure we understand the word cheaper to mean exactly what I'm saying. It means when someone wants people to understand that their brand has value priced items, which means they're clearance priced or priced very affordably and their whole brand is priced that way, then you can use specific colors and specific style elements to communicate that to your target audience that hey, we have value pricing, we have value product. Take a look at temu. They have a bright orange brand and a very playful brand which tends to look childish, which makes things feel like plastic. Cheap, low cost. That's not necessarily a bad thing if you want people to understand, which like most Gen Z millennials, understand at least that TEMU is not offering you the cream of the crop quality product. Could there be some sure. But you are pretty much understanding that you're sacrificing high quality products for a lower price point and you're okay with that. So I want to make sure people understand when you want a cheap.