If the picture is vivid our brain thinks we are experience what is pictured

Some sharing from one of my favourite blogs Neuromarketing by Roger Dooley! http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/vivid-print-ads.htm

One of his latest posts is about new research that shows that some print ads can be impactful enough to create a false memory of having tried a product that doesn’t even exist!

"Researchers Priyali Rajagopal (Southern Methodist University) and Nicole Montgomery (College of William and Mary) showed subjects either high imagery or low imagery versions of print ads for a fictitious popcorn product, Orville Redenbacher Gourmet Fresh. Other subjects were allowed to consume “samples” of the invented product which were actually a different Redenbacher popcorn.

A week later, all of the participants were surveyed to determine their attitudes toward the product and how confident they were about their opinions. Amazingly, members of the group that viewed the more vivid ad were as likely to report that they had tried the product as the group that actually consumed the samples. The group that saw the low imagery ads were less likely to report they had tried the product, and had weaker, less favorable opinions about it.

Changing the brand to an unknown name, the fictitious “Pop Joy Gourmet Fresh,” reduced the false memory effect. I presume that the more ubiquitous the product and brand, the more likely these false recollections are to occur. I’m sure I could look at any number of vivid ads from Lamborghini and still never think I had taken an Aventador for a spin.

See also Paper Beats Digital For Emotion.)