What is key visual? What does optimizing key visual mean for improving marketing efficiency? How to create the most effective key visual? Let’s explore in detail in the following article.
As a customer, what do you think stays in your mind the most every time you watch a promotional video or bring profound marketing content? Cheerful tunes? The sounds and images are rich in figurative, amplifying or “miracle” uses through Advetiser’s speech? All of them are important, but it would be a big omission if the list you mentioned does not have the presence of a key image that carries the main message that the “owner” of that brand wants to convey. load.
In technical terms, that image is called key visual. But do you really understand what key visual is? What is the role and significance of Key Visual in creating an impressive, attractive advertising campaign?
What is Key Visual?
For those who are genuine advertising, media or marketing people, it seems that what key visual is does not take too long to answer. Because, that concept is so familiar and the intuitiveness of the key visual plays the most important role to attract customers and convey the message that covers the manufacturer’s campaign (big idea ) to customers. most focused product in a brand marketing campaign. So what is key visual?
As emphasized above, the key visual is a creative image that carries the main message about the product or service that the manufacturer wishes to convey in a communication campaign. Playing the role of the central “point of view” in an advertising video or on banners, signs, etc. Key visual is used flexibly throughout the videos to convey information, stimulate the emotions and excitement of the audience. look at products, services… especially the target audience that the brand is aiming for.
Key visuals are built by design experts on graphic ideas that express the brand’s personality or through a story told by images that speak to the values of the product.
Why is Key Visual important?
According to AG Lafley, President of P&G: “Consumers typically don’t spend 30 minutes listening to a data-filled presentation, but rather spend 30 seconds skimming through sample ads, and in that time – samples Your ad must be interesting to engage, create emotion, and powerful rather than drive action. The most effective strategies consumers experience are innovative end products.”
In this case, Key visual is the most useful means and “weapon”, because it affects the viewer’s vision and creates positive emotions and feelings for the product.
Do you feel your tongue burning every time you see KFC’s crispy golden chicken pieces with a few cups of Pepsi placed next to them? Are you looking forward to the time to order the product right away when you see the flash sale product collapse in just 1 hour frame illustrated by the number of hours counting down and how many of your dream products are displayed in front of your eyes? All customers find it hard to refuse the attraction of images that convey the message of the product they want to own.
That’s why key visuals, along with slogans, taglines, and messages play an important role in the success or failure of a strategy. A standard key visual is assessed by factors that are clear, easy to understand and carry a unique and different feature to help target customers easily distinguish your brand from competitors. It is brand positioning in the minds of consumers, when they think of the image associated with your brand, they immediately remember your product.
Key Visual again acts as the “trump card” of images in a single marketing strategy. In the era of fierce competition between product brands, not only new brands enter the market, but even old brands must always renew themselves in different stages. convey the same message in different mediums and in different forms.
Therefore, the creative mind of designers must always be ready to open up new ideas for attractive Key Visual sets.
Distinguish Key Visual and Logo?
Are Key Visual and Logo the same? This is a question that many of you are still wondering. Both are created with the purpose of creating impression and remembering the brand. But in reality, Key Visual and Logo are two completely different things.
A logo is a symbolic representation of a brand . Logo will be used throughout the company’s operation. The details in the logo are minimalistic and focus mainly on the brand name.
In contrast, Key Visual contains more graphic details from images, text, colors, messages, etc. The main purpose of Key Visual is to create attention for viewers and increase brand recognition.
However, both are geared towards creating a brand image, so both the Key Visual and the logo need to be consistent. To be able to create synchronization and increase professionalism for the brand.
Surely by now, you have decoded yourself the question of what is key visual for yourself as well as the importance of key visual in an advertising and marketing strategy, right? But that’s not the most interesting part. Stay tuned for the following content, to understand the current “top” key visual trends and how to create your own unique and eye-catching key visuals.
How to build an attractive key visual
Applying Key visual to advertising, especially videos to images printed on finished product packaging, is the way that many businesses still do to stimulate the eyes of consumers (consumer).
Lipton brand created a key visual to promote their mint green tea product by the image of a girl immersed in the cool tea taste with a spacious natural space. This fresh, light, emotional image immediately captured the hearts of the audience by creating a wave of shopping for the product while also elevating lipton’s brand in the hearts of consumers. That’s one of the proven examples of key visual effects.
However, in reality, not all brands can do this. In the process of creating Key visual, advertising and design professionals need to keep in mind the following principles:
1: Identify the right customer
If we are not Marketers, we still imagine simply a product, a product campaign aimed at many audiences. But in reality that is not the case. In addition to the decentralized way of serving a segment of customers in the market for all the products in a small brand. In large enterprises, the distinction in customer segments is more pronounced such as ordinary products, aimed at those with mid-range budgets, and high-class products targeting high-class and luxury customers. .
Each advertising strategy, key visual is also conceived from the customer. Pay attention to the feature because the key Visual is a mirror that reflects the needs and desires of each of your target customer segments.
2: Ensure consistency
Key Visual is considered the breath of a marketing campaign . Therefore, it is necessary to create a focal point for customers. But the highlight does not mean complicated and sophisticated design, but just hitting the right psychology of the customer.
In fact, even though Key Visual makes a deep impression, it is very difficult to make customers remember it without the link with the brand identity. On the contrary, for Key Visuals that have a simple design but are linked to the brand identity, accompanied by meaningful messages, it will be easier to make customers remember the product.
3: Emotionality
The emotional element is always the most effective tool in product marketing. A successful Key Visual is able to touch the emotions of customers. However, the emotional element needs to be properly placed in Key Visual to bring harmony in content and form.
4: Take advantage of colors, fonts, layout
In addition to the impactful images and sounds, which directly affect and satisfy the eyes and ears of the user, color is an extremely important factor in the role of increasing arousal. As emphasized at the outset, your target audience only has a few seconds to “enjoy” the publications they are extremely interested in before hitting the words “Skip Adverd” on the screen, for those Ads are posted on Youtube, social networks in general.
The use of prominent images such as red, yellow, orange, purple, black… has the ability to stick in their memory, but the most prominent impression of the product or service in a shorter time is the faded colors. . Therefore, when planning the Visual key idea, this is something that you need to keep in mind to “mark territory” in the user’s brain.
Did you know, it’s no coincidence that a series of beverage and fast food brands such as MCdonald, KFC, Cocacola… choose the typical colors of red and dark blue to be the main colors in their key visuals. . This selection is premeditated with the goal of attracting attention and stimulating the appetite of the target customer. Besides, shortening lengthy textual content is a way to make your Key visual stand out.
5: Pay attention to the time of implementing the advertising strategy
Although the people who design and create ideas for Key Visuals are Designers, it is mandatory to go through the process of exchanging and proposing to discuss ideas with the branding and marketing department of the organization. Why? Simply, because they are the part that best understands the latest trends and movements of the market and hot issues in society…
In addition to colors, images, uniqueness… customers are also easily attracted by hot events as a very natural reflex. It would be great if in your promotional publications there are images that help them associate these events… Stringentity in the mind of the target customer easily helps them to leave an impression of the key Visual as well. like your brand longer in mind.
Key visual trends that businesses should apply
1. Digital Gets Delicate
We are living and working in the age of industrialization and digitalization in terms of design style, delicate brushstrokes and smooth textures.
Because “As hardware and software evolve, professional illustrators, and key visual designers are sketching them with digital pencils and it gives them quality, flexibility, and creative growth opportunities.” on the go,” said Brenda Milis, director of creative services at Adobe.
2. Female Creator
Women are always a hot topic, easy to inspire through unique photos. In addition, key visual events will look for images that can be accompanied by stories about social change and women’s real life to make the message more appealing.
According to Milis: “Images that celebrate women and their creativity, famous women will be pioneers of their time, as contemporary women are expanding. their influence on the women’s community in general. This theme both in terms of perception and role, diversity, gender balance are always at the forefront of design ideas.” So key visual don’t miss this great topic.
3. No Man is Island
Customers today are very sensitive to environmental issues. Therefore, the responsibility of businesses to the environment needs more and more attention, becoming more important than ever. According to Census Bureau statistics in the United States, 97% of America’s land is rural, but only about 19.3% of people live there.
“As designers and people living apart from the wild, they were looking for images that showed the presence and importance of nature and all that we have built. ” – according to Milis.
Besides, according to Adobe Stock analysis by Adobe Digital Insights (ADI) shows that the majority of urban images are searched to cover the balance between context and nature. It is the image of parks, gardens, north bridges, rivers and streams, and fresh landscapes around man-made structures. And only about 25% of urban images searched are entirely man-made.
So key visual designers need to know this problem to integrate into their designs perfectly.
4. 3D
3D is one of those interesting concepts with any key visual . 3D advertising images or videos are often applied in the real estate, automotive, film industries, etc. to help improve the viewing experience for viewers.
In addition, in the face of the increasingly powerful digital technology in recent years, if the key visual and key visual designers, key visual events know how to exploit well, the brand will achieve certain success.
5. Storytelling
Storytelling is a trend that has exploded in popularity in 2022. It helps brands reach closer to customers through stories or experiences around customers’ lives, and cleverly adds calls to action to buy.
Key visual events tell an interesting story using images and videos aimed at a specific audience. Keyvisual has the right tone and context, the business will surely win the hearts of the audience.
10 IMPRESSIVE VISUAL KEYS OF WORLD POPULAR BRANDS
Key visual is the fertile creative land of designers. An excellent key visual will be widely applied to many different media publications and content types. Let’s refer to 10 impressive and interesting key visuals of world famous brands in this article.
- BNP Paribas Bank with the message “Immediate visible return” means that customers will receive benefits clearly and quickly. The key visual shows a thrifty pig made of transparent glass so that the coins can be seen immediately. Photo: Behance
2. Key visual with image of Downy bottle in a perfume bottle. Expressing the message Downy perfume. Photo: Behance
3. The nectarine juice pours out a whole region full of sweet fruits. Photo: Behance
4. Key visual on the occasion of Coca-Cola’s environment day. Trees and birds fly out of Coca-Cola water. Photo: Behance
5. The bottle of Heinz ketchup emphasizes the flavor made up of lots of fresh tomatoes. Photo: Behance
6. Bottle of Lipton IceTea mango green tea is separated from succulent mango fruit. Photo: Behance
7. Inspired by the story of curious Alice in wonderland to advertise an apple-flavored white rum. Photo: Behance
8. Advertise the Phillips light bulb. Photo: Behance
9. Evian spring water. Fresh transparent source images from the Alps flow to modern cities. Photo: Behance
10. Every perfume bottle has a story inside. Photo: Behance
Conclude
Key Visual is an important factor that determines the success of a brand’s campaign. Therefore, understanding the essence of Key Visual will help designers and businesses more favorable in their brand promotion plans.
Hopefully through the above sharing, Malu has helped you know what key visual is, grasp the key visual trend, know more information about key visual design and key visual event to develop your business’ brand. better. Wish you and your business success when using key Visual.
