Icons as Tools of Visual Persuasion in Advertising

Although visual rhetoric offered a promising theoretical framework for understanding how visual communication works in advertising, it has not yet provided a systematic understanding of how visual persuasion operates. One of the assumptions which might inhibit the further development of visual rhetoric is the argument that images do not imitate reality. Our counter-argument is that resemblance between visual signs and reality is essential for leveraging consumers’ experiences. The findings of two experiments suggest that individuals not only incorporate their knowledge of the physical world into their interpretation of ad images, but also that the principles of categorisation of physical objects can be used to understand how persuasion works in visual communication.