Persuasive Advertising - J. Scott Armstrong [146]
A print ad for Dove soap used an illustration to support a benefit: “Now there’s a Dove that smells like this.” It was positioned at the top of a blank page, except for a small photo of Dove at the bottom with the caption, “Introducing unscented Dove.” Illustrations are especially useful for poor readers or multinational advertising. For example, they play a large role in advertising in South Africa because of its 11 languages and wide disparities in education and culture. A South African ad for Toastmasters Club (a public speaking club) showed only an empty text-box over the word “Toastmasters” and a phone number, thus making the ad applicable to all of South Africa (Shepard 1967).
If you cannot show the product or benefit, consider showing people associated with the product, such as satisfied users, helpful retailers, or competent employees. Or show settings that are related to use of the product.
Many companies feature employees in ads. In the late 1980s, Waste Management featured one of its drivers who had won an award for safe driving in a TV commercial. It concluded with, “That says a lot about him—and, we hope, something about us.” In 2004, the Peninsula Hotel chain showed portraits of its employees taken by Annie Leibovitz, a famous photographer.
Consider the Institute for Justice, an organization that promotes ideas, such as protecting private property from government seizure on the behalf of private companies, allowing people to choose an occupation, and allowing children to choose a suitable school. The organization has an “I am IJ” campaign, which shows pictures of individuals who describe how they were helped.
Many advertisers support their messages with illustrations. For example, in our WAPB analysis, of the 480 print ads from leading advertisers, 72 percent of the illustrations supported the basic message.
Those who depend on direct response advertising learn quickly that they should use informative illustrations. Pick up any Yellow Pages book and you will see that irrelevant pictures are rare. The pictures usually show the product, supplier, typical customer, or location.
Evidence on the effects of illustrations
Evidence from lab experiments supports the use of product-relevant illustrations:
Purchase intentions were higher for ads with illustrations relevant to the product. Two experiments, comprising 170 subjects, used print ads for a fictitious soft drink, Sunburst. In a high-involvement condition, subjects made a choice among soft drinks, while low-involvement subjects selected from an unrelated product category. Some subjects saw ads with irrelevant illustrations (for example, in one experiment, the product was presented with iguanas) while others saw relevant illustrations. Purchase intentions were higher when the illustrations were relevant to the product, especially under high-involvement conditions (Miniard et al. 1991).
In a small-scale lab experiment, 27 subjects were shown full-page color print ads advertising cars, calculators, or cameras. Some saw ads with pictures related to the brand, such as a camera without any mention of a brand, while others saw an unrelated picture. Thoughts about the brand were three times as high for those viewing a related picture as for those who saw an unrelated picture (Edell and Staelin 1983).
Another small-scale lab experiment used an actual eight-page B&W ad for an imported automobile, and then created a four-page version by eliminating uninformative pictures. Despite using twice as much space, the eight-page version did not lead to higher intentions to purchase, aid recall, or improve attitudes toward the brand (Singh et al. 2000).
Illustrations generally aid recall. A review of the evidence concluded that pictures are easily recalled (Lutz and Lutz 1977). For example, one study