Is a picture really worth a thousand words?

By John M Grohol PsyD

Automated pink bunnies playing the drums. A man made of tires. A burger-selling clown. Almost every advertisement is accompanied by a visual image. And consumers use these images to infer about the product being offered. But are those inferences the right ones? According to an article in the June 2005 issue of the Journal of Consumer Research consumers do not always connect the dots. Furthermore, researchers conclude that it may often have to do with how the visual images are presented.

“This research finds that people will make inferences about products–even if the ad copy does not explicitly address those features–just from viewing a product picture. However, when both the ad copy and a feature of the picture both direct the ad viewer to think about a product feature, viewers are most likely to infer that a product has that feature and will perform well. Under these conditions, they also seem to like products better. Thus, consistency of the picture and ad copy helps people to make positive inferences about a product,” explain the authors, Laura Peracchio (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) and Joan Meyers-Levy (University of Minnesota).

Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central. He has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues, and the intersection of technology and psychology since 1992.