Which has More Impact: Visual or Verbal Ads?

February 9, 2010 in Business by gtaylor | 1 comment

Radio spots are written differently than TV spots.  Magazine ads are designed differently than newspaper ads; and there’s even a difference in creating a static billboard ad and a digital billboard ad.  All advertisements are sending a message to an intended receiver, but which type of message has more impact, a visual or verbal one?

TV and print advertising has an advantage over radio because, TV and print ads can show the audience a visual of the product. Radio can only describe the product being sold (which is why the majority of radio ads are for a services instead of actual products).

Imagine if Verizon never displayed their coverage map over their customer’s character, would those ads still be as powerful?  If Apple never showed some of the iPhone’s functionality in their commercials, would it have been such a hot item?

Consumers remember pictures and catchy tunes (i.e. Subway’s 5 dollar footlong) which is why wordy ads never work.  Think about all the car dealerships that advertise their specials on the radio.  The disclaimer at the end has to be stated, but the ad would be too long and too boring if that part of the commercial was played at regular speed.

Verbal and visual ads have their advantages and disadvantages.  Which is why choosing the most appropriate media is critical a campaign’s success.

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  1. Jenny Zorina’s avatar

    Jenny Zorina on February 9, 2010 at 12:28 pm

    Hi,
    Nice article, thanks to the author.

    I would like just mention that it highly depends on which product (service) is being promoted and the target auditory to be addressed.
    as soon as strategy defined, customers (or marketing agency) define which channel to choose and what tools to consider .. There are visual oriented people who never read and acquire all the information via pictures and infotext oriented people who usually avoid pictures and read all the texts and analyze details including last comma in the row..

    and most of serious Advertising HandBooks teach us that good ad addresses both categories in one message, – which means that they combine all the information in visual and textual form and bring it to the market.