In 2025, "Mocha" was out of the circle. A warm brown hue called Mocha Mousse was named the Color of the Year by Pantone, a research firm specializing in color research, and it started a chain reaction in the consumer world: at Fashion Week, designers used this color as a source of inspiration for their collections; Automobile and mobile phone manufacturers are also actively following suit; The paint company is rapidly updating the color card and adding new wall color schemes.

Not only that, but it's also permeating people's daily lives, from hair color, eye shadow, phone cases to coffee cups.

Image source: Pantone official website

Just figured out Morandi, Macaron, Maillard, and Mocha Mouss. A seemingly simple choice of colors was launched by fashion and became a new topic in all walks of life. This is in line with the anchoring effect in behavioral economics: in situations full of uncertainty, people often rely on the information they are exposed to at the beginning (i.e., the anchor point) when making judgments or decisions, and use this as the basis for subsequent judgments and decisions.

The anchoring effect is common in everyday life. For example, electronic product merchants make consumers look forward to and stimulate their desire to buy by revealing new phone information in advance, displaying new colors, and announcing prices. Home furnishing brands use albums to showcase home decoration trends, and concretize "ideal life" as a template that can be purchased; The clerk of the tea shop guides consumption by asking "do you want a medium cup or a large cup" to hide the small cup option; The original-priced clothing in the shopping mall and the clothing with discount labels of the same type are always displayed in a staggered manner, and the anchoring feeling brought by the comparison between the two to consumers is constantly strengthened, which greatly increases the possibility of purchase.

Set an authoritative anchor for the market. Merchants use this anchor to unify the direction of product design and form industrial chain synergy and marketing narrative; Based on psychological identity, consumers do not consciously use this anchor as a reference when shopping; Finally, a new consumption ecology will be built and the scale of consumption will be expanded. This is how the anchoring effect can guide consumer behavior and then affect the consumer market.

And the magic of anchors is that they allow merchants to find shortcuts to decision-making. In the complex market environment, the prediction of authoritative institutions can greatly reduce the uncertainty of the market and the trial and error cost of merchants, and merchants can quickly determine the direction of product design, thereby shortening the product development cycle and seizing market opportunities. When many businesses adopt the same or similar anchors, the marginal cost of raw material procurement and supply chain management can be significantly reduced, the production efficiency and economic benefits will be improved, and the scale effect generated by cross-industry collaboration will be highlighted.

On the consumer side, when consumers repeatedly encounter the same or same-color products in different scenes, they will gradually form the cognition of "this is the trend", which will imperceptibly trigger consumption behavior.

The underlying principle of these business logics is to use the initial information to set consumers' expectations, change their consumption habits, and transform their spontaneous choices into predictable and large-scale behaviors.

Of course, not all preset anchors are paid for. Pantone is recognized by the market because its predictions are based on authoritative data support and scientific algorithm models. Merchants value not only an information code, but also a "certainty" for their own decision-making and purchase.

When the fragrance shop can dynamically adjust the fragrance concentration based on how long you stay in front of a product, when the virtual fitting room can automatically match the colors and styles that suit you best, and when we are amazed by the accuracy of the algorithmic matching, the battle for dominance of consumer choice has entered deep waters.

So the question is: when you are excited about a product, have you ever thought about where that excitement comes from? Is it out of real needs and aesthetic preferences, or is it shaped by preset anchors? How to hold the line of defense of rational consumption and make decisions that truly meet our needs and preferences is worth thinking about.

Economic Daily (author Li Yuan), original title "Who Determines Your Consumption Choice"

Source: Economic Daily