Salon Sessions – The importance of perspectives in visual storytelling

“Advertising is based on one thing — happiness. And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car.”  – Don Draper, Mad Men

Not only should the images and videos you use in your marketing and advertising be conveying feelings of longing and desire for the happiness that they believe they will feel when they use your product or service, they should be attention grabbing and relevant.

Product images alone are fine for catalogs but not for marketing and advertising success.

The images should also be designed to be relatable to your target audience’s demographics, effectively capturing their attention and generating a desire to know more or to have. 

That being said, your promotional materials should ideally be designed to immediately grab the attention and curiosity of consumers with a compelling visual story, accompanied by an attention getting headline.

Here are a few things to consider when giving priority to which photos to not only use but to use as a guide when creating winning images in the first place:  

Which photo/perspective immediately draws you in and makes you curious about not only the subject but subliminally to what’s beyond/around the subject/product?

Does the subject’s background story convey emotions/feelings that subliminally or powerfully support the benefits of using that product or service?

Watch out for photo bombs…

Please note: The images used here were taken, totally random and in the moment to casually illustrate the comparative exercise.  

Critiquing the following images will help you develop your own intuitive sense of compelling visual storytelling content.

Q: What is the subject of the story in the photo?

Q: Are you quickly drawn to the subject?

Q: As you pull back slowly, what emotion do you feel about the photo as a whole?

Q: Is the emotion a positive one? If not, how does it make you feel?

Q: Is the feeling one of confusion or uncertainty as to what exactly this photo is about? What are you supposed to be looking for?

Q: Is the overall quality of the photo acceptable to the style of messaging you are using – casual Social Media posts vs advertising

These are a few key examples of components to consider when composing effective visual storytelling in your images. The more you intentionally give attention to these things the sooner they will evolve into intuitively guided responses. The more you expand your awareness of your surroundings and the more you notice how looking at scenarios from different angles tell different stories, the faster you will develop and expand the innate creativity that lies within you. Quantity vs Quality is the key to success.

As Nike’s famous slogan goes…

“Just Do It!”

Go! Be creatively prolific and the skill level you desire will evolve over time. Practice makes perfect.