Words: 839
The question coming up in both cases is whether the image is stronger than the word? Images are more powerful since they are considerably easier to remember than complex sentence structures. At the first sight, a picture is able to convey a whole statement or situation. In contrast to that, words have to be combined into substantially more complicated compositions to equal this quality. It is a fact that by this means the image is more “colorful”. High-quality advertising has to catch attention immediately to have the opportunity to sink deep into the addressee’s memory.
People today are increasingly confronted with sensory impressions, to attic advertising anyway, it has to stand out of this turmoil. A mere text is definitely not distinguishable from a mass of impressions as it does not catch the eye and needs far to long to be decoded. Otherwise, it might be true that words are also able to cause the production of images in people’s minds, however, it is certain that images are more immediate and rather likely to stick in the consumer’s memory. A suitable example for long-lasting remembrance of an image is part of an advertising campaign by United Colors of Benton.
The company used the photograph of a half- eked black man with an artificial hand, to which a spoon was attached to. Just looking at this shocking picture, one automatically comes up with a lot of questions about the imaged man: “Why did he lose his hand? Does his skin color play a major role? Maybe racists abused him and cut his hand off? Why is there a spoon attached Image vs.. Word in Advertising By hamlet’s particular advertising to consist only of words, there would not be as much of a direct emotional appeal that prompts so many questions and it would hardly be remembered.
For companies, “a standardized campaign instead of various local managing is likely to result in economies of scale (Hornier et al. 2010, p. 170). ” Therefore the use of images in advertising is very profitable for global players since visual association does not depend on language at all. Regarding a Levies advertising, probably everyone recognizes a half-naked model, only wearing a pair of Jeans as a symbol of desire or beauty. An Englishman as well as a Japanese are expected to conclude that Levies products raise the consumer’s attractiveness.
In that way companies have the “opportunity to exploit good creative ideas in different countries Hornets et al. 2010, p. 170). ” As communication always consists of verbal and non-verbal units, high-quality advertising should also combine the advantages of image and word. Complex sentence structures are indeed not perfect eye catchers, however, if somebody expects advertising to convey very precise information it is possible to claim that words are more likely to guarantee that every consumer receives the same information about the product.
Images offer a lot of place for imagination and in that way include potential misinterpretations, which in turn bear a considerable risk for advertisers as messages might end up conveying content, that was not intended to reach the consumer at all. In 2010, there was a rather shocking WFM advertising that displayed a shotgun pointed at a child in a tiger costume. Without the slogan “imagine this is yours”, it would be extremely hard to comprehend the intended message that hunting not yet fully grown animals or poaching endangered species should be prohibited.
In this case, it indeed is the image that catches the eye, however, the slogan renders the advertising a complete message that still is Mathew shocking and in that way sticks in the addressee’s mind. Of course, advertising always bears the risk of conveying the wrong message as people think differently anyway. The feature to reduce this risk to an acceptable level is exactly what identifies top-class advertising. 2 images and easily understandable slogans. Hornier et al. (2010, p. 80) detected that “slogans categorized as easy to understand [are] better appreciated” than difficult ones. It is a fact that advertising has scant time to attract attention and to precisely inform consumers about their product. That is why slogans have to contain maximum accuracy using a minimum of words. An easily understandable short English slogan is not even likely to reduce an images power of being understandable all around the world as English is the lingua franca that every consumer should know a little.
Furthermore, using complicated slogans also leads to diminishing the audience’s size as children or handicapped persons struggle with understanding their content. In conclusion, it is true that the image is somehow stronger than the word in advertising as it has the ability to directly target the consumer’s senses and emotion. However, words are able to reduce the risk of an image to be misunderstood. That is why advertisers should always consider that the effectiveness of advertising is measured by number of sales and that companies cannot take too much of that risk.