Distinguished Alumni Speaker Series lecture the evening
of May 5 at Wichita State’s Eugene M. Hughes Metropolitan
Complex.
Lynessa Rico ’05/05/09, the founder and president of Bright Consumer Consulting, a Chicago-based consumer behavior consulting and marketing research firm, knows a lot about color.
Not just the colors themselves, but how color and color combinations influence our subconscious consumer purchase decisions — how color can drive sales.
Rico, who holds degrees in business administration, marketing and management from WSU and a doctorate in business psychology from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, uses her business and color savvy to educate marketers, designers and innovation teams at a number of corporations — Redbox, Groupon and Victoria’s Secret are three — about consumer-behavior trends and how best to optimize strategic color decisions in product development and marketing efforts.
With 14 years of richly hued experience as a business development pro, Rico has research interests in color preference, consumer behavior, behavioral economics, sensory marketing, and personality types. An avid long-distance runner who also loves musical theater, she lives in Chicago with her daughter and three cats.
The evening of May 5, Rico returned to her alma mater to speak about the lure of color as a WSU Distinguished Alumni Speaker. One of her key points during the presentation, which was at WSU’s Hughes Metroplex, was the importance of “never stop learning.” Among the attendees were Laura Bernstorf ’04, Elaine Bernstorf ’76/78/93, Sonia Greteman ’82, Sara Jones ’70.
So what’s Rico’s favorite color?
Purple.
