What is visual marketing?

“Visual marketing is the research, analysis and use of images in marketing activities to enhance brand memory and recognition in the minds of consumers”.

The phrase “Visual Marketing” describes the use of design elements, graphics and images of the brand in Marketing. Harnessing the power of visuals and visuals will make marketing activities more engaging and memorable. This contributes to strengthening the customer’s image of the brand and the message in mind and remembers the brand at the time of purchase. The classic story can be told about the case of Coca-Cola when Coca-Cola’s separate bottle design has shown the brand’s unique personality even when only the bottle is left. The Intellectual Property Office of Japan has done the verification by peeling off the labels and logos on Coca bottles. As a result, up to 93% of consumers do not need to look at the brand, just based on the bottle shape to recognize a familiar Coca drink.

As an integral part of mixed media activities, the task of implementing visual marketing activities belongs to Creative Agencies or Branding Designers, who do not directly do Marketing but know how to use images to communicate. Get the best message. To be able to create images that are aesthetically pleasing, convey messages and are highly memorable, marketers and image makers need to understand, coordinate and work well together. However, to find the common language of Marketer and Designer is not a simple matter when these two objects have completely different ways of thinking and logic. Professional brand managers need and should understand design language to be able to convey ideas and coordinate with the design department for effective visual marketing activities.

World trend

For brands around the world, visual marketing is part of the media mix. If you close your eyes for 30 seconds and think about the KFC brand, what do you imagine? Is it fried chicken, is it red, or the familiar image of Colonel Sanders? You have such visualization thanks to the consistency in brand identity and image. The KFC Logo Design is one of the most famous and instantly recognizable logos in the world. The KFC logo depicts the iconic founder of the company, Colonel Sanders. KFC is known for its consistently great and simple visual identity. Besides, with the characteristic of fast food industry, red color is chosen as the identity and appears synchronously in the image of KFC’s marketing activities both online and offline. Coloring consultant – Alain Chrisment commented: “Color is the first message of a product to consumers and consumers will feel this immediately.” Color also plays a very important role in recalling the brand in the minds of consumers. It stimulates the perception and conveys the message quickly, and easily evokes the nature and image of the product. That’s why the same fast food industry, but thinking of KFC, people will think of red and fried chicken while with McDonald’s it is yellow and hamburger.

Synchronizing brand identity and image has become a mandatory activity for brands around the world. Not only the usual identification elements such as colors, fonts, logos… but even design styles are included in visual marketing, expressing the brand’s characteristics and personality. Apple is a prime example. Starting from the logo of the half-eaten apple, which is simple but full of personality and full of desire, all Apple-branded designs continue to convey that message. The iPhone with its keyboardless design was a major revolution in mobile devices. Each generation of iPhone released after that has received expectations from the technology user community because Apple has created demand and nurtured a passion for superior aesthetics, making consumers feel integrated. with a contemporary aesthetic and a minimalist yet sophisticated design style.

In Vietnam, what’s going on?

The image will directly affect the consumer’s interest in the brand. In a consumer fair, the director of a Vietnamese agricultural product brand shared the difficulty of inviting customers to try the product because many customers “ignored” the product due to the unattractive packaging design. guide. “The unattractive packaging has greatly reduced our competitive advantage, even though the product is considered to be of good quality,” she admitted. The above story is not a strange story for Vietnamese brands. Vietnamese products, especially agricultural products, always have to keep prices low because they cannot compete with products from other countries such as Thailand or Korea… The reason is not the quality of the products, but the quality of the products. in the brand image. Vietnamese brands, which still follow the old way of thinking, mostly focus on product development but forget about the image element. Many Vietnamese brands, although the products are very good, but the designs are too bad, the packaging is old and they do not invest in the media image, so they are not well received by customers.

However, that is not the whole story. There are also many Vietnamese brands that have gained an advantage when competing in the market by understanding the importance and management of visual marketing activities. The brand of cocoa products – Alluvia is a good example. Thanks to many years of living abroad and having worked for large corporations, Ms. Nguyen Ngoc Diep, director of Cacao Xuan Ron Cho Gao company understands the importance of a beautiful packaging.

In order to catch the eye of consumers at first sight, the Alluvia brand has invested in luxurious design and elegant colors. The environmental friendliness factor is also paid special attention and shown right on the product packaging, because the brand’s target is export and this is a factor that international customers are especially interested in. In addition, there are many Vietnamese brand names that have focused on visual marketing and images such as Bitis with its brand image synchronization strategy, Nutrifood with an improved brand image and Communication activities are invested with care, or with brands that are simply innovative packaging such as Vinh Hao mineral water or Dai Duong shampoo… This represents the efforts of Vietnamese businesses to change themselves. to enhance the competitiveness of the brand.

On the eve of international integration with the free trade agreements Vietnam has signed with other countries and economic regions in the world, many opportunities and challenges have been opened up for Vietnamese brands. The market expands, many barriers are removed, and economic integration deepens, which means that domestic brands not only compete with each other but also have to compete fiercely with foreign brands to survive. Obviously, the brand image or the appearance of the brand is not all but a very important part, because without it the brand will not be able to attract the attention of consumers and convey all the special characteristics of the brand. brand identity and value as well as receive proper evaluation. Right now, marketers need more insight into the management of visual marketing activities and make efforts to improve the image to enhance the competitiveness of Vietnamese brands.

Source: GAM7
Photo: Internet Collection