Unlike text, images are real eye-catchers. But there are a few things to bear in mind when choosing the best image ...
Unlike text, images are real eye-catchers. But there are a few things to bear in mind when choosing the best image motifs: For example, don't rely on the pithy “sex sells” principle and instead give your customers the chance to identify with the motifs. We explain how you can best use visual marketing in car dealerships.
Images have an immediate and unconscious effect on the emotional center of the brain. This applies not only to press photographs, action films in the cinema or the VW commercial on television, but also in the car dealership at the point of sale. Successful car marketers therefore place appealing images in the showrooms instead of small-print information boards. What is important can be summarized in three rules.
1. KEEP YOUR GOAL IN MIND
In order to appeal to customers visually, it is worth defining the emotional core message of your campaign in advance. This sounds banal, but in practice it is often not. The aim is to translate the message directly into visual language. The way: Don't deviate from this. Don't be satisfied with symbolic images that only indirectly hint at a mood. Such images do not reach the emotional center of the brain.
An example with three scenarios: You want to convince customers to test drive the Opel Ampera. The core message is: Just one test drive with this car will make you happy. How can this message be illustrated? If an Ampera key is lying on a table labeled “Demonstration car”, the goal is completely missed. The emotional core is only hinted at when a car salesman hands the key to the happy woman. The targeted visuals show a smiling driver sitting relaxed at the wheel of the car.
2. CHOOSE ACTIVATING MOTIFS!
When selecting image material, it is also important to know that people like to see other people. The less abstract a motif is, the better. The following applies: a face - and especially the eyes - activates the emotional center more strongly than a body. In turn, an object that is touched by fingers or held in the hand attracts more attention than the object alone.
Another plus point can be collected if the viewer can identify with the motif. Supermodels in posed poses hardly give rise to this, but real people and situations do. High-contrast images and those that not only appeal to the visual sense but also tie in with other sensory experiences are also activating. If an image shows the leather interior of a Porsche, this also appeals to the sense of smell and touch. This heightens the emotional impact of the image.
3. GUIDE, DON'T DISTRACT!
Emotional images have such a strong effect on people that the brain focuses on them, even when people are working with high concentration. This was discovered by psychologists at Leipzig University in an experiment, the results of which they describe in the Journal of Neuroscience. According to the scientists, the effect of the visual impression lasts even when the image has already disappeared from the field of vision. This proves it: Strong image motifs can be used to direct the gaze and attention of customers.
However, this does not apply without restriction: Images with an extremely high emotionalization potential often create a vampire effect or over-activation. In experiments on the so-called Ebbinghaus illusion, Dutch psychologist Niek van Ulzen found, for example, that negative images reduce the optical illusion discovered by Ebbinghaus, but at the same time narrow the viewer's radius of perception. “Negative stimuli demand particularly close attention. The information around them is blocked out to a greater extent,” summarizes Van Ulzen.
This is not the only reason why erotic or shocking motifs are unsuitable for image campaigns: This is because they not only absorb attention, they actually block the brain. As scientists at Yale University discovered, viewers literally go blind for a brief moment. To ensure that the core message is not lost, it is advisable to rely on images that impress but do without bare skin and shock effects.
