Images should be used only if they add to the message expressed primarily in words. They are not sufficient in and of themselves to communicate much of anything. They may look nice, they may create an emotion, designers may congratulate each other on their brilliance when they share their creations, but if you want to communicate a significant Christian message, images alone won’t do it.

Some of you may object: “But, a picture is worth a thousand words.”

Whenever I hear that statement, I always respond with the question, “What thousand?”

People often make the first statement as some sort of understood truth that images say more than words do. That is simply not true. Reality is that the same picture can mean as many different things to as many people who look at it. Not convinced?

What would you say a picture of the American flag means to:

• A Marine just out of boot-camp?
• A terrorist who has been water-boarded?
• An immigrant just granted political amnesty?
• An Al Qaeda sleeper cell member?
• A member of Congress?

It’s the same flag—but we all bring different histories, experiences, loves, and hates to any image from flags to puppies to clowns. No image, picture, or graphic is self-explanatory.

Testing that backs up the statements above

Gerry McGovern, communications writer and expert has written a blog entry, which I have quoted below, in which he details marketing research that shows the ineffectiveness of images to communicate a message. Mr. McGovern is kind enough to allow reprinting of his material and I strongly recommend you visit his site and sign up for his newsletter. Information on how to find out more about Mr. McGovern’s website and articles are at the end of this article.

ARE MARKETING IMAGES DAMAGING YOUR BRAND?

By Gerry McGovern

On the Web, traditional marketing images are increasingly being seen as useless annoyances by customers. They undermine the credibility of the brand.

The two webpages were trying to get you to sign up for test drives for supercars. They were identical (pictures of the cars, video, etc.) except for different headlines:
LIFE IS SHORT. JUST DRIVE
DRIVE FIVE SUPERCARS. THE US SUPERCAR TOUR

One headline convinced 34 percent more visitors to fill out and submit the lead generation form. “We think headlines can be the most influential element on the page, and this test certainly shows that,” the WhichTestWon website stated. “WhichTestWon.com research shows headline tests are one of the easiest ways to raise your site’s conversion rates,” Ann Holland founder of WhichTestWon states. “Subhead tests and response device headlines (such as wording on a button or at the top of a form) are also extremely powerful.”

Words are absolutely critical to the success of a website and yet many marketers, communicators and senior managers spend far more time on images.

“My group must continually respond to requests to add yet another image to our home page,” Cliff Tyllick wrote to me in an email recently. Cliff is the Web development coordinator for the Agency Communications Division of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Cliff went on to state that they had done a large study of their homepage’s usability which “showed quite clearly that images not only divert attention from themselves ("This looks like an ad. I'm not here to buy anything; I'm here to get something done.") but also poisoned the drawing power of words at or below their level on our home page ("This looks like fluff, so nothing beside or below it could possibly be serious. I'm looking for serious content.").

One participant in the study Cliff’s team conducted visited the website every day and complained that it was impossible to find information on a particular program. For the previous six months there had been a large graphic on the homepage advertising this very program.

In another website we were involved with there was a graphic advertising a service in the right column of the homepage immediately visible. The homepage was long and three screens down there was a text link for this service. The link got several times more clicks than the graphic ad. In another study we did most participants never even saw the banner ad that took up 40% of the homepage because they had clicked on a navigation link before it had time to fully download. Yahoo did a major study on banner ad effectiveness and found that while these ads had some impact on those over 40, those younger than 40 hardly ever saw them.

If these stock photography marketing cliché images are actually damaging to a brand’s reputation, why do we keep using them? There was an Irish family that had a tradition of cutting the roast in two every Christmas. One of the children wanted to know why but nobody could tell her. It was a tradition going back generations, she was told. Finally, the child asked her grandmother. “When I was young, sweetheart,” the grandmother said, “we had a very small oven.”

Citations and ways to contact and sign up for Gerry McGovern’s emails:

www.gerrymcgovern.com

Closing comments from Yvon Prehn:

Images do not fully communicate the complexity of the Christian message. Images do not give time, date, location, and let you know if child care is provided. Images can stir up emotions, but they don’t make practical connections.

We need words. Let’s choose them as carefully as we do our images.