There are many reasons why we rate visual advertising highly.
As the saying goes ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’.It takes time to read. People will often scan through text to pick out relevant information and filter out your advertising message. If done well, visual advertising can make an impact that will imprint your brand on your audience's mind. Visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text and tend to make a longer-lasting impression.
Now, in the office we were reading one of our monthly magazines last week and came across an advert for MailChimp, the mail management and tracking service. If you’re not in the web or marketing business, you might not recognise this winking chimp. We recently read an article that MailChimp has used this cheeky chappy on a billboard in an airport! Being confident with your branding is great, but you might feel that a specialist company such as MailChimp are getting ahead of themselves with such massive audience advertising.To show you what we mean, here's our list of 10 Excellent Examples of Visual Advertising. Let’s start with number 10:
10. Land Rover
This abstract picture of off-road tyres worn as shoes doesn't show you a specific product but, along with the tagline in the top left corner, it shows you what the Land-Rover brand stands for: comfort and endurance.
9. Puma
Using famous sporting personalities endorsing your products is a common way of enticing people into choosing your brand when purchasing sporting clothing. This stunning image shot at a low angle, showing the crowd’s reaction in the background, gives the Puma brand an exciting and powerful identity. The clever deletion of the word ‘distract’, replaced by the word ‘devour’, highlights both the crowd and the puma.
8. Dettol
Using purely imagery, Dettol combines a number of hands clutching household items which attract dirt to allow readers to make the connection between the product and its potential to destroy germs. It is both simple and clever, creating a striking image which is hard to ignore.
7. Heinz
Heinz capitalises on the power of its well-known bottle label to turn pouring its sauce into a piece of sculptured art. Impossible to ignore, it is intriguing and compelling.
6. WWF
Like many charities which use visual advertising, this striking image of an elephant is cleverly juxtaposed with a small copy of the logo and strapline to suggest that the animal is at the forefront of the WWF’s work. WWF has created a beautiful and clever advert that is simple and to the point.
5. Audi
Another abstract advert which shows that you don't need to be hard-selling to persuade customers to buy from you. We recognise the Audi Quattro brand while at the same time being puzzled by the image. We don’t necessarily need to understand ‘Power, even in nonsense roads’ to be captivated by the ad, just as we don’t need to know what ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ means in English to associate it with Audi.
4. Delifrance
Eliminating the noise and clutter from this picture makes more of an impact than cramming as much text and images into your advert as possible. Delifrance suggest that their baguettes are as familiar and homely as a pair of slippers in this simple but effective ad.
3. Levi's
Levi's have visually represented the main selling point of their Eco Jeans in this striking and edgy ad. It suggests that, if you wear Levi’s jeans, you are environmentally savvy. Whereas many high-end clothes are photographed being worn by expensive models, Levi's shows that they're more concerned about the planet. At the same time, the image implies that, if you wear Levi’s, they will turn your body into a plant or bush. The picture is also reminiscent of the film ‘Edward Scissorhands’.
2. Whiskas
Most cat owners will find this advert hilarious! Humour is very powerful. When people find something amusing, the chances are they're going to want to show someone to share the joke. Whiskas have portrayed the household cat as a cheetah, the text suggesting that giving your cat Whiskas to eat reawakens its natural instincts as a hunter.
1. Nike
This is our favourite ad of our top ten. The simple Nike tick - known to many as the 'swoosh' - is a well-known trademark and so the viewer doesn’t need to be told the name of the product. This striking graphic shows the complex design of Nike trainers and the connection to the cotton spindle suggests they are made from natural products.We hope you enjoyed our Top Ten visual adverts. Which was your favourite? Have you got a favourite visual advert of your own? Let us know in the comments section below!
