I read an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal that talked about the possibility of Google influencing customer behavior. They used the example of ice cream shops. Google recently celebrated the 119th anniversary of the ice cream sundae by changing their logo to this:
Data from ice cream shops showed a spike in sales on the day Google displayed the above logo. The question was posed whether Google had influenced this spike in sales.
In my personal view, I would have to say – Yes. When you have the attention and eyes of tens of millions of people every day, you will have the power to influence. People tend to be visual beings – We see something and it can tingle one of our senses. There very well could have been many people who saw the picture of ice cream, and their subconsious said “Hey, I am hungry for a ice cream sundae”.
The point here is that you can influence even your own customers by using strategic imagery – Restaurants do this by including photos of their food in their menus. So think about what you can do to your website, landing pages, or any other visual that will influence your customers to buy more.
