Advertising giant George Lois (inventor of “The Big Idea”) always spoke about the power of images in ads. For what it’s worth, I certainly agree – image stop us in our tracks, imprint idelibly on our minds (concious and subconcious?), and leave us with lasting impressions that may even transcend the brand itself. Advertisers hate that last part, of course.

During the process of creating a new print ad for Rainier, I began to ask myself: What image best conveys our brand promise of merging technology expertise and PR excellence? The image we eventually chose for our final ad looks like a brain slice from a CT scan, where the brain topology looks like circuit traces overlayed with a few integrated circuit chips.

Cool image, in my opinion, and pretty evocative of our brand statement.

BUT, is it too limited in scope? Does it fail to convey our expertise across a wide variety of technologies and markets? Or does it pigeonhole our image in the electronics/semiconductor space?

Then last night, I was reading Sports Illustrated (whose baseball postseason coverage sadly did not include the Red Sox…), and came across a two-page spread ad from Toyota. The message the ad was trying to convey was that Toyota is an innovator, and the main image was the word INNOVATION spelled out in circuit board font.

I wondered how much money Toyota had spent developing and focus grouping the ad. At any rate, Toyota chose to represent “innovation” with circuits, despite the fact that Toyota is certainly not in the electronics business.

So what, if anything, is the best image strategy for evoking a brand association with broadbased innovation and technology? Is it the circuit board? Highly overused images like astronauts? A lightbulb? Albert Einstein? A Van de Graf generator? Puzzle pieces? Fiber optic lightpipes?

I welcome your comments and ideas around this topic.

Steve Schuster Uncategorized advertising, innovation, public relations, technology, Technology Public Relations