Picture-perfect promotion
Visuals are worth a thousand words, and marketers are losing no time in realising this, as an unstoppable revolution disrupts the advertising world, writes Zia Creative Network’s
Zia Creative Network CEO Waseem Yakdi says that as media changes it has never been more important to master visual communication.
Show, don’t tell.
The advertising world is taking a colossal leap in altering the clichéd methods of brand promotion. It was not long ago that written content was considered as one of the most robust formulas for engaging a target audience, but visual media has strikingly taken the advertising world by storm by triggering the senses of brands’ target audiences. Effective visuals have become a powerhouse to boost engagement and stimulate communication.
While flipping through the pages of a magazine or scrolling down the Facebook feed, our eyes often get glued to the intriguing and enthralling images and videos more than just plain text. I still remember some of the most unconventional and bizarre TV commercials I saw several years back. I even remember the brand, the design and even the locations of certain billboards I have passed by on my way to work, as the visuals on the billboards were exceptionally engaging.
Studies show our brains not only process visuals faster, but they also retain and transmit much more information when it is delivered visually. Considering this, marketers and agencies are now on a run to carefully integrate different forms of thought-provoking images and videos into their brand-endorsement strategies.
If a message is conveyed to the audience and no one remembers it, did it really happen?
Today, it’s easy for information to get drowned in the endless digital ocean or ignored if it is not in a digestible format. In such a scenario, the advent of digital cameras, smartphones and social media have provided a platform to reach out to the world by creating visuals capable of leaving a long-term impact on the minds of the target audience.
By 2021, video traffic will make up 82 per cent of all consumer internet traffic, according to Cisco. It is not difficult to see why, as 87 per cent of online marketers are currently using video content in their digital marketing strategies. Digital marketing expert James McQuivey estimates that a single minute of video content is the equivalent of 1.8 million words.
Thanks to its viral and highly economical nature and built-in value, visual messaging is the future of brand promotion in years to come. It has an unrivalled potential to create emotiondriven sales – and sales are always personal on some level. Buyers always wish to see and feel the product before making a choice, and powerful images and creative videos can emphatically produce that feeling.
Making an expressive video or capturing a stirring image requires creativity and understanding of human psychology. The cocktail of these elements can do wonders for any business.
As video production and photography has taken over the centre stage of all the marketing channels of every business, it becomes imperative for advertising agencies to develop in-house studios and hire professionals to meet the swelling demand of good-quality videos and pictures from clients. In-house production helps clients react to the market, and an agency address its capabilities to make any type of content, be it a big-budget broadcast or a low-budget social media video.
Any agency today that is not able to create videos and pictures for Instagram and Facebook, live streams and commercials for TV will find itself at risk as it is a requisite for the sustainability of the agency. Now traditional agencies are competing to catch up with digital ones, which have long had digital video capability.
The agencies have been outsourcing the professional services of studios and production houses for their clients for developing commercials, videos for social media and pictures.
The flip-side of this is that these services often exceed the budgets of the small companies that don’t have lofty marketing budgets. Besides this, the advertising agency doesn’t have direct control over the cost and quality of the video and pictures. Therefore, the time is not far off when all agencies will transform into production houses.
In today’s noisy world, being outlandish is something that helps you stand apart from the crowd. Churning out meaningful, targeted, and engaging visuals can be one of the most beneficial tools to elevate your brand and foster a connection with your customers.
Today, it is easy for information to get drowned in the endless digital ocean or ignored if it’s not in a digestible format.