Green, as you know, is the color of money. Red is for everything else, or at least it may seem so from the way it was used in early advertisements. Red, indeed, has been described to have all sorts of functions. From being “ultimate cure to sadness”—according to American fashion designer William Ralph "Bill" Blass—to the color which suggests excitement, strength, vitality, and aggressiveness. It was also noted that red is supposedly great for boldness and accents. The most emotionally intense color, red apparently stimulates a faster heartbeat and breathing. Have we left anything out? Oh, yes there is plenty of red around Christmas time and red also signifies love.

In an article published in July 30 1996 issue of The New York Times, Jennifer Steinhauer pointed out that while red means "don't touch it,” at the same time it encourages endless consumption. She also added that red does not make only human consumers happy. Not specified by name, a company at that time marketed red contact lenses for… animals and claimed that chickens that spent the day wearing their lenses were happier and ate less food, and had more time for laying eggs. There you go!

What’s next? Red lenses for humans?

Perhaps not, but did you know that red is the most popular color? Well, actually it’s not. In 2002 article “Color by Numbers” which appeared in American Demographics, results of a nationwide poll conducted by New York City-based BuzzBack were discussed. The main finding was that blue was our favorite color no matter whether one is black, white, Hispanic or Asian (Wallace J. Nichols’s book Blue Mind does make sense). The same poll indicated that the second most favorite color varied by race but it was not red for any of them!

So if it’s not “Red Mind” why bother with this color so much? One of the reasons is that red has had a huge impact value as an attention getter, according to Laraine Turner, former president of the Color Marketing Group, a not-for-profit, international association of color design professionals involved in the use of color as it applies to the profitable marketing of goods and services. In other words, members of this association interpret, create, forecast, and select colors in order to enhance the function, salability and quality of manufactured goods.

Unfortunately musicians are not of much help here. “Back in the U.S.S.R.” was the opening song of the so called White Album, thus contributing to the ever-lasting struggle to determine which color is the right one. Lady Gaga, on the other hand, described confusion when it comes to red itself when she said: “If I decide to make a coat red in the show, it's not just red, I think: is it communist red? Is it cherry cordial? Is it ruby red? Or is it apple red? Or the big red balloon red?”

So once again: why red? It may very well be that it was the least expensive color to produce. It does not hurt, however, that according to the mentioned-above nationwide poll red is preferred by achievers, high-powered, active women, the most economically stable, and the most secure. Don’t we want to be in at least one of these groups?

If one needed a different, somewhat “scientific” explanation why ads use(d) so much red it’s probably for the same reason why fire trucks are red. I do not know who is the author of this text (you are a genius!) which is all over the Internet but here is the explanation:

“Because there's eight wheels on them and four people, and four plus eight is twelve, and twelve is a foot and a foot is a ruler, and Queen Elizabeth was a ruler, and Queen Elizabeth was also a ship, and the ship sails the sea and in the sea is fish and fish have fins, and the Finns fought the Russians and the Russians were red and that's why fire trucks are red.”

In other words:

I'm back in the U.S.S.R.
You don't know how lucky you are, boy
Back in the U.S.S.R.
lalalalalalalalala….