Introducing color is a great way to delight customers, but it can introduce SKU complexity and leave warehouses full of unwanted colors when the design team guesses wrong about Fall’s hot new color. A top technology brand engaged Emerald to guide the color strategy on its upcoming lineup of computing, wearable, and IoT devices to both increase the uptake of color SKUs and accurately predict color choice for manufacturing.

We blended allocation modeling, industrial design, and trend analysis in a customer-driven shopping cart exercise fielded both in-person and online. Through our custom choice model, we optimized color choice for market reach and customer delight – not the average appeal. With this model calibrated to sales data, we were able to increase overall customer delight and color uptake by almost 50% compared to the previous year’s palette.