Science Confirms Pics Are Worth 1,000 Words

This image on the front page of National Geographic today piqued my interest.

The image above is in a rotating banner along the front page of National Geographic today.

To think that little dino babies could have nursed on mama dino’s little teats! I’m a sucker for ancient reptiles, and am myself mom to a creature of prehistoric persuasion. So I wanted to know, were dinosaurs and mammals not so different after all?

Spoiler alert: NatGeo’s article goes on to pretty convincingly debunk this newly proposed lizard lactation theory. Now instead of a lesson on dinosaurs, NatGeo taught me something about persuasion and images. After seeing that image and the overlaid text suggesting a radical discovery, I was primed to believe — practically persuaded already!

As you may have guessed, there’s science behind this phenomenon.

The reptile connection in Deaf Turtles, Persuasive Pictures is a total coincidence, I swear! What you should pay attention to is neuroscience marketer Roger Dooley’s observations about how photos give statements credibility:

• In one study, images didn’t even have to be relevant to the statements being made in order to have this effect.
• Add to this, text along with an image magnifies this effect even more.
• Use images carefully and thoughtfully. A powerful image can draw attention — and that can be good or bad.

Mind-hack marketers can take advantage of this psychological disposition. Pictures really are worth a thousand words, and even more so when words accompany pictures. Kinda explains a lot about Internet memes, doesn’t it?

Oh.

About the Author

Virginia Nussey is the social media editor at Bruce Clay, Inc. Basically, she gets to cruise the scenic route of the World Wide Web, scrawling "V was here" tags along the way. Catch up with her on Twitter @VirginiaNussey and Google+.

4 responses to “Science Confirms Pics Are Worth 1,000 Words”

1. Kent writes:
   

   Hi Virgina, I fully agree with you. Each time, when I blogged articles that don’t have images, my readers would comment and send me feedback to ask me to put more images.

   @ January 22nd, 2013 at 20:22
2. May writes:
   

   No doubt. One can write a long and informative article but without images, everything just looks so dull.

   @ January 24th, 2013 at 04:21
3. Parmveer Singh writes:
   

   Virginia, its same old saying in new words. Nice post!

   I always advocate to use relevant pictures in the blog post, it makes user to understand the page content without even reading a single line.

   I evokes emotions too.

   @ January 24th, 2013 at 04:35
4. Tyler C writes:
   

   So true Virginia, its amazing how potent one word can be when accompanied with a picture of an animal.. smart marketers can hijack everyday pictures of animals or nature and re-purpose them for specific initiatives..

   @ January 26th, 2013 at 11:05