The Art of Advertising the Non-Visual
Sometimes, you’ll see an ad and notice that the content has little to do with the product. Ads are supposed to be 30-second short films that get a point across, but sometimes they feel more like short films than ads. There’s a good reason for this.
Ads can only use visuals and sound to convey their message. This is why movie trailers are so effective—they advertise through the medium they already exist in. Car commercials, however, are a bit trickier. You’re not just selling what the car looks like; the sound of a car isn’t typically a selling point. So, ads often focus on the car’s functionality or, to stand out, they might showcase the emotional significance a car can bring or how you’ll feel driving it.
Advertising the way a product can make you feel is also why cologne and perfume commercials are so creative. Despite it being 2024, cologne and perfume are still marketed as different products. You cannot display smell through a TV screen, no matter how many times Jeremy Fragrance tries. You’ll also struggle to visualize the smell through video and audio, so these commercials rely on advertising the way you feel when wearing the scent.
Food commercials face a similar challenge. They can’t display taste through the screen, so they trick our minds into making the food look like it tastes good. It’s funny how our minds attribute different visual cues to taste, even when the food becomes less edible to appear more visually appealing. Whenever you get hungry looking at a food ad, you’re essentially hungry for glue.
Conclusion
In the world of advertising, the non-visual elements of a product—like smell, taste, and emotion—are often the hardest to convey. Yet, through creative visuals and sound, advertisers can evoke the desired feelings and associations, making their products appealing even when the senses they target can’t be directly engaged. This art of advertising the non-visual is what makes certain ads memorable and effective.