When to use real vs unrealistic product images
Real (or realistic) images increase attention on your product’s key benefits and drawbacks (e.g. how healthy or effective it is). Unrealistic images reduce it.
Thomas McKinlay
September 19, 2023
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📝 Intro
You’re a brand manager deciding which images to use on the packaging of your new cereal.
You have two main options:
A realistic photo of the cereal in a bowl of milk, slightly touched up to showcase the textures of the cereal.
A cartoon-style animated bowl of cereal, with sparkles around the fruit clusters and a waterfall of milk pouring into the bowl.
Which one should you choose?
It depends on what you want to highlight - or minimize - about your product.
P.S.: Here are 6 more recommendations on how to optimize your product images (as a free sample of Ariyh’s Playbook of Ecommerce Optimization)
Previous insight: The impact of credible vs sketchy marketing (more insights here)
Use realistic photos to highlight your product’s key characteristics. Use unrealistic photos to minimize them
Channels: Image Ads | Ads | Packaging
For: B2C. Can be tested for B2B
Research date: May 2019
📈 Recommendation
Use actual or realistic photos (e.g. with minimal retouching) if your product’s core benefits are your key selling point of your products (e.g. healthiness, effectiveness, safety).
Use unrealistic images (e.g. animations, cartoons, sketches) if your product’s core characteristics might be a drawback (e.g. not the highest quality) or you want to focus attention elsewhere (e.g. the enjoyable experience).
You can use this in your packaging and ads.
🎓 Findings
People have weaker judgments of a product’s key characteristics (positive and negative) when they see unrealistic images of the product.
As part of a series of 7 experiments, people:
Judged a multigrain bread as 17.7% more healthy when they saw an actual image of it (vs a vector graphic with low details)
Rated a cupcake (for which healthiness is not a core feature) as 36.9% healthier when they saw an unrealistic vector graphic of it (vs an actual image)
Ate 28% more potato chips because they were less worried about their health impact when they saw an unrealistic image (graphic with low details and no texture) vs an actual image.
Were shown 5 ads with either realistic or unrealistic images of SUVs. Those seeing realistic images judged the SUVs 15.3% safer.
🧠 Why it works
When we see unrealistic images of an item, it’s harder to imagine ourselves using the product compared to when we see an actual image.
When we imagine ourselves using a product we pay more attention to its benefits and drawbacks.
So when we see unrealistic images, we pay less attention to them.
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✋ Limitations
The research focused on food products, with one experiment on SUV vehicles. It did not directly test services or experiences.
Some people rely less on images and more on product descriptions or other signals when making judgments about a product. It could be that the effect is weaker for them but this was not tested.
🏢 Companies using this
Functional products (e.g. household cleaning products), tend to use realistic images to highlight the effectiveness of the products.
Unhealthy products such as chocolate drinks, candy, or high-sugar cereals regularly use unrealistic images to make customers less conscious of the health drawbacks. For example, Nesquik uses cartoons of their drink alongside their bunny mascot.
Automakers occasionally use this for compact cars or motorcycles to minimize focus on safety ratings. For example, ads for Honda’s compact Fit feature an animation of the car driving through a colorful background and defying gravity.
Quaker Oats’ Chewy Granola Bars, marketed as a healthy snack, uses realistic images throughout their marketing
⚡ Steps to implement
Use realistic images (actual or slightly retouched photos) to make people more conscious of your product's main benefits (e.g. health impact, safety, effectiveness). This can include pictures of your item (e.g. a roll of paper towels, bottle of Kombucha) or your location and service (e.g. spa’s treatment rooms, gym’s equipment).
Use unrealistic images, (cartoons or graphics) if you want to make your customers less conscious of drawbacks. This works well for certain products (e.g. candy, chocolate milk) and fun activities (e.g. video games).
🔍 Study type
Lab and online experiments
📖 Research
The Image Realism Effect: The Effect of Unrealistic Product Images in Advertising. Journal of Advertising (May 2019)
🏫 Researchers
B. Kyu Kim. Yonsei University
Jinhee Choi. Korea University Business School
Cheryl J. Wakslak. Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California
Remember: This is a scientific discovery. In the future it will probably be better understood and could even be proven wrong (that’s how science works). It may also not be generalizable to your situation. If it’s a risky change, always test it on a small scale before rolling it out widely.
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