[1] Eikenberry, K. (2014). Five Thoughts on Persuasion. https://blog.kevineikenberry.com/leadership-supervisory-skills/five-thoughts-on-persuasion/.

Chapter Goals

This chapter presents the fundamental concepts of persuasion, with a special focus on messages, audience, and the Call to Action. The goals of this chapter are to:

•    Present an outline for this book

•    Define “persuasion” and “visual persuasion”

•    Explain the roles of message and emotion in persuasion

•    Illustrate why we need to define and understand our audience

•    Stress the importance of the Call to Action

PERSUASION IS A CHOICE we present to a viewer to adopt our point of view. This point of view could be a product, an idea, social change, or something we want them to do on our behalf. Though we may be talking to large audiences, persuasion is always a one-on-one conversation between us and the viewer. In addition, persuasion today often occurs remotely. Rarely are we face-to-face with our audience.

Persuasion is not forced. We hold no power over our audience. We cannot demand. Instead, we need to convince others of the value of our ideas through the way we position, explain, and present them.

In the past, people wrote reports. Today, we share memes. Look at how you communicate: emojis in texts, images in email, and videos posted to Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube. We communicate using the shorthand of images.

Our society is awash in images because images are persuasive and entertaining. They don’t require a lot of thought, the best ones communicate quickly, and we can share them with friends with a single click.

Persuasion is not just limited to consumers; it applies to business as well. The higher we rise in management, the more we rely on our communication skills. But, when persuading others, we face significant challenges in getting our message expressed, heard, and acted upon. There are a lot of barriers. Deadlines are short, planning and preparation are rarely sufficient, and, many times, we don’t really know what we are doing.

As Jason Nazar, CEO of Comparably, writes, “Persuasion is the art of getting people to do things that are in their own best interest that also benefit you.”²

[2] (Nazar, 2013)

If you need to convince someone about a new idea, a better way to work, or a technical problem—in fact, whenever you need to persuade anyone about anything—the techniques presented here can be invaluable.

Jeffrey Charles, CEO of Artisan Owl Media, writes, “I believe that influence is one of the top needs if we’re going to be successful. …You can’t accomplish your goals without people. And if you’re dealing with people, you need to be able to influence them.”³

[3] (Charles, 2016)

Successful persuasion requires us to control the story, the presentation, and the message to gain maximum impact with our target audience. This book is about learning how to control these aspects of a persuasive message using visual images.

Dianna Booher has written a helpful book called What More Can I Say? on the process of persuasion. I found it useful in understanding how to best explain the persuasive process. The word “persuasion” has connotations of Big Brother, mind control, and manipulation. But, as Booher writes, “Persuading is not a dirty word. It’s not about manipulation. [Persuasion] is a neutral word. Whether it’s good or bad depends on the [sender’s] intellectual honesty, choice, purpose, and outcome.”⁴

[4] (Booher, 2015, p. xii)

Advertising—and Persuasion—Evolves

Compare this text-heavy ad from the 1880s to ads today. It’s almost impossible to read with multiple messages buried under too much text. (Cute picture, though.)

(Image Credit: Free Vintage Illustrations of Gardens and Gardening, Free Vintage Illustrations)

Persuasion is about choice. Yes, the viewer needs to make a choice on whether to accept our argument or not, but, more importantly, we need to make a choice in how we use these tools.

Professional filmmakers learned these techniques a long time ago. They apply them every day in creating commercials, feature films, and television programs. This is why what we watch today is so deeply moving. While the rest of us are not filmmakers, we can still leverage these techniques to meet the challenges of daily life. All too often, we post a message then wonder why no one is paying attention.

How This Book Is Organized

My goal is to enable you to communicate more effectively using images. Throughout this book, I’ll illustrate different, and ideally better, ways to create powerful, effective, and compelling images (and video) with the capability to persuade others.

Many times, the audience we need to convince is not in the same room with us. We need the best tools to persuade someone remotely. What’s the most effective way to communicate with someone when we can’t look them directly in the face? Right: images.

This book is divided into three major sections:

•    “Persuasion Fundamentals”

•    “Persuasive Still Images”

•    “Persuasive Moving Images”

The first section—“Persuasion Fundamentals”—illustrates the core concepts that help create effective, persuasive images and video. (Most of these apply to both.) Learning these fundamentals will provide a firm foundation for the creative techniques we’ll spend the rest of the book presenting.

The second section—“Persuasive Still Images”—looks at the process of creating effective still images, starting with presentations then expanding into photography and image editing.

The third section—“Persuasive Moving Images”—builds on everything we covered in the first two sections then adds tools to create compelling moving images. (And that movement adds a vast new layer of complexity.) This section includes audio, video, and motion graphics.

There’s a lot to discover, but, at heart, we are simply trying to grab the attention of a viewer long enough to share our message and encourage them to act.

Why Is Persuasion Necessary?

Most of us, when asked to name an activity that uses persuasion, would respond with “advertising” or “marketing.” While true, this is a limited view of a broad activity. Persuasion applies to far more than just marketing. For example, it is used to get funding for a new idea, explain the benefits of a new law, or even explain to a 4-year-old why they need to take a bath.

In the past, we would generally effect change using face-to-face communication. In today’s world, almost all persuasion happens remotely, where the person doing the persuading never meets the person they are trying to persuade. Because your audience has never met you, a key element of persuasion is built on trust. Your message is more likely to succeed if your audience trusts you. And trust cannot be built quickly.

Visual persuasion is the act of persuasion expressed using images, either still or moving. From broadcast and social media to posters taped on a wall, images surround us. As the speed of life continues to accelerate, images convey information faster and more powerfully than any other medium.

In fact, images today are more pervasive than the written word. It is increasingly clear that in today’s visual and mobile society all of us need to know how to persuade. Visual communication and storytelling are now essential business and social skills because they cut through the noise to get our message heard. Persuasive images are no longer the exclusive province of the professional designer—they are a necessary communication skill for all of us.

We also need to recognize that an image is more than a picture; it is a visual representation of a message and an emotion. As you’ll discover, effective images touch the mind and the heart. We need to move an audience. This requires us to, first, stop them long enough to actually see our message; second, deliver our message; and, third, take action. No presentation is sufficient simply providing information. It needs to include a core emotion, coupled with a compelling story, to drive our message deeply into the brain of the viewer.⁵

[5] (Booher, 2015, pp. 132–133)

As the tools to create images continue to increase in power yet decrease in cost, more of us are creating images to persuade others. Sure, we can always hope to “go viral.” But, wouldn’t it be great if we could improve the odds? The problem is most of us don’t know what we are doing. It’s like handing a crayon to a toddler. They can make marks on paper, but to the rest of us, it’s just a meaningless scribble.

This book grew out of a course I’ve taught for several years at the University of Southern California (USC), where students spend a semester learning a variety of media software. These aren’t film students. Instead, they are computer programmers who want to learn better ways to communicate, engineering majors who want to learn design software, or business majors who are looking to expand their horizon beyond simply “running a business.”

In school today, students are writing machines, creating theses, term papers, written reports of all descriptions. The problem is that today’s society does not value long, written documents. Today’s society values brevity, ideally with a twist at the end. Students are developing writing skills with limited commercial value after college.

Media today isn’t a report, it’s haiku. It isn’t a paragraph, it’s a bullet point. This is a hard transition for many of us to make. In almost all cases, we write too much. In my class, we focus on writing less and communicating more.

The pressure to communicate successfully is intense. The three broadcast television networks of 30 years ago have been replaced by an explosion of digitally delivered media. Streaming services are springing up like dandelions, sometimes welcome, sometimes not. The marketplace is flooded with content. Awards shows like the Oscars, Emmys, and Golden Globes, traditionally the domain of the major film studios and cable outlets, are seeing stiff competition from Netflix, Apple, Amazon, and other nontraditional distribution services.

With so much content to choose from, audiences are developing ever-shorter attention spans. Just a few years ago, we could comfortably watch a well-crafted 60-second commercial. Now, even a 15-second commercial seems too long. Producers struggle to connect with audiences and hold their attention even for short-duration ads.

It’s been said that there are only six or seven basic plots to choose from.⁶ That means, as creators, we need to remember an audience always judges what they see today based upon what they’ve seen in the past. This past experience provides shortcuts we can use as communicators to trigger a feeling based only on the briefest of messages. For example, watching the first few seconds of a film trailer of a woman walking nervously down a dark street at night, the moon thinly veiled by clouds as a car screeches to a halt, pretty much tells you that we are not watching Sesame Street.⁷

[6] https://www.autocrit.com/blog/7-stories-world/

[7] (Ascher & Pincus, 2019, pp. 22–23)

You may think you are creating a poster for a school bake sale. But everyone will view and judge your poster based upon every other poster they’ve seen. To paraphrase my film editor friend, Norman Hollyn, everything we see is influenced by what we’ve seen before and what we see after.

This is a fundamental idea that runs throughout this book: Research has shown that if something looks good, people assume that it works “good.” An image that looks “good” will be more effective than one that doesn’t, even if the message they both contain is the same. This is especially true when you are trying to communicate with people who read less and watch more.

I remember reading that if the instructions for a task are well-designed and easy to read, the task is perceived as easier to do.⁸ Even changing the font to make the text more readable (which we cover in Chapter 3) improves the perception that the task is simpler to complete.

[8] (Norman, 2004, p. 19)

What Is Persuasion?

Persuasion is a specific act designed to create change in an audience: a change in thought, behavior, laws, and so on. Persuasion is not violent. It is not a command. It is a choice you offer to someone else to follow your suggestions. In today’s society, persuasion is pervasive.

To me, a persuasive message has five core components:

Your goal is to create such a compelling desire in your audience that they want to do what you are suggesting. However, persuasion is as much what listeners hear as what you say. This is why understanding your audience is critically important.

Returning to Dianna Booher, “To influence someone to follow through on action, you have to start with the other person’s reality—not yours.”⁹ This idea, that what we want is far less important than what the viewer wants, is one we’ll come back to a little later in this chapter. For now, though, the reason we need to consider the needs of the viewer is that the best persuasion is not a monologue but a conversation.

[9] (Booher, 2015, pp. 17, 19)

“Pitching,” Booher writes, “whether a formal sales pitch, an elevator pitch, or a crafted commercial—causes people to duck. A conversation, on the other hand, invites them to engage and exchange information. If you intend to persuade, make sure you’re conversing, not pitching.”¹⁰

[10] (Booher, 2015, pp. 17, 19)

Still, persuasion is meant to affect an audience. But, how do we do this? We don’t change minds by shouting at people, as if the volume of our voice will somehow make a difference. Persuasion isn’t shouting. It’s connecting. It’s listening. It’s a two-way street.

As we will refer to a lot in this book, being persuaded is a choice the viewer makes. This means our efforts need to be focused first on attracting the attention of the viewer then delivering our message in such a fashion that they want to make the decision to change. And the most effective, most powerful, and, ultimately, most successful way to get people to pay attention is to appeal to their emotions as well as their intellect.

This idea of generating an emotional response in our audience is central to persuasion today. Donald Norman, in his book Emotional Design, writes, “Everything we do, everything we think is tinged with emotion, much of it subconscious. In turn, our emotions change the way we think, and serve as constant guides to appropriate behavior….”¹¹

[11] (Norman, 2004, p. 7)

Since persuasion is a choice the viewer needs to make voluntarily, we need to find as many ways as possible to encourage them to make that choice. The best way to do so is to appeal to both their mind and their heart. This is why there is an ongoing focus in this book on the emotional content of words, images, fonts, and colors.

Zoe Adams, PhD candidate at Queen Mary University in London, researched the intersection of consumer psychology and public health. What she discovered is that our willingness to believe a message depends upon three factors: credibility, similarity, and power.¹⁴

[14] (Adams, 2017)

“Credibility,” she writes, comprises trustworthiness and expertise and often refers to the believability of the source. “Similarity” indicates that attitude change was greatest for viewers who were told their thoughts were similar to other participants. And “power” refers to how the individual originating the message is perceived. High-power sources are perceived as more persuasive than less powerful sources, which is why testimonials are so commonly used today. We tend to respect the opinions of people who are perceived as well-known or experts.

Persuasion would be a lot easier, as well, if people were actually paying attention. But they aren’t. Most of the time, they are distracted and thinking about something totally unrelated, like lunch. This means that, before they can be persuaded, they need to see our message, understand what we want them to do, then make the decision to do it.

One of the best ways to get someone’s attention is with an image, which is why this book concentrates on techniques to make images more compelling. We need to stop people long enough for them to pay attention to our message.

What Is Visual Persuasion?

I define “visual persuasion” as the process of convincing someone to take a specific action based primarily, though not exclusively, on an image or video. This is generally done remotely, where the person sending the message and the person receiving the message are not in immediate contact with each other.

Traditional examples of visual persuasion include television and magazine advertising, printed posters, and flyers. The opposite of visual persuasion is a white paper, where the message is delivered almost exclusively through text.

A good rule of thumb, when it comes to media, is “show, don’t tell.” Don’t explain it with text, show it with an image. We will spend a lot of time in this book learning exactly how this is done, showcasing specific techniques you can put to use immediately.

Modern examples of visual persuasion still include advertising, of course, then add social media, business presentations, email, and texts. While we often think of email as personalized and text-based, think of all the emails you receive each day that are written for a mailing list and feature an image as the central focus of the message. Why? Because images are more persuasive than text.

Or, even more compelling, look at text messages today. They are filled with emojis, animojis, images, and memes of all sorts. What is an emoji if not a visualization of something we would normally write as text? We seem almost afraid to write—we would rather illustrate.

For instance, which generates a faster and stronger emotional response, the statement “The tears rolled down the baby’s cheeks” or Figure 1.1?

Of course, you looked at the baby first! In fact, you looked at the image before you read any text on this page. Any visual is far more powerful than any text.

While you may think of this as a “simple” photograph of a crying baby, the photographer is using specific techniques to deliver the maximum amount of emotional impact in this image. We examine these techniques in detail in Chapter 2, “Persuasive Visuals” and Chapter 7, “Persuasive Photos.”

In my definition of visual persuasion, I included the phrase that the sender and receiver were “not in personal contact with each other.” This is important. If you are standing next to someone, there are stronger methods of persuasion than simply showing an image: a touch, the tenor of your voice, their perception of your emotions—all the cues we receive when we share the same space with someone else. However, those powerful cues are absent in digital media.

We are surrounded by technology today that “connects” us with others. But, while we’ve never been more connected, we have also never been more isolated. Each of us lives inside a personal bubble so dense that it takes a massive force to penetrate and grab our attention. In far too many cases, text isn’t strong enough. A personal touch could break through, but too often, we live our lives through our screens, in emotional isolation from others. The only thing strong enough to penetrate our personal bubble is the visceral power of an image.

Reinforcing this lack of interest in text, one of my USC teaching assistants, Macaleigh Hendricks, told me: “In my experience, 99 percent of students are reading the absolute bare minimum of a chapter when it is assigned as homework. In fact, last semester, one classmate told me she would read the first and last sentences of every paragraph just to feel that she ‘did the reading.’”¹⁵

[15] Macaleigh Hendricks, USC teaching assistant (Personal email)

Professional marketers know this, which is why so much of marketing today is image-driven.

Define Your Audience

The first assignment for the students in my USC class is to pick a message or theme that they want to explore during the semester. They are given a week to write a one-page description of their idea and turn it in. A key part of this first assignment is to define their audience. Most students reply, “Everyone!” And, why not? They want to attract as many people as possible.

But, if you were promoting healthy eating on Sesame Street, would you use the same language you would use to talk to your friends? Would you explain the music you like to your parents the same way you would explain it to your friends?

Messages work better when they are focused on specific audiences; different audiences require different messages. For example, imagine you are telling a story to a first-grader. Then, tell the same story to a high-school student. Finally, tell the same story in a business meeting. Even if the central message is the same, the story must change because the audiences are different.

This is a core point: stories (messages) do not exist in a vacuum. All stories are told with an audience in mind. You can’t begin to tell a story until you first have a clear idea of who your audience is.

When I was younger, I studied to be a Dale Carnegie instructor. Dale Carnegie’s best-selling book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, was released in 1936 and is still changing lives today. One of his central ideas is that “There is only one way under high heaven to get anybody to do anything…. And that is by making the other person want to do it.”¹⁶

[16] (Carnegie, 1961, p. 47)

Each of us needs the necessities of life—health, food, sleep, shelter, money—but after that, we need nourishment for our self-esteem. However, nourishing that self-esteem is different for different people. As communicators, we need to define who our audience is and define what they want.

During my Carnegie training, one of the most important lessons I learned was: WII-FM. (“What’s in it for me?”) We listen to everything through a filter that assesses how we can benefit from what we are being told.

Henry Ford wrote, “If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.”¹⁷

[17] (Carnegie, 1961, p. 66)

This is a critical point as we seek to persuade others. What we want does not matter! Of course, we want to improve ourselves; but who besides us cares? Nobody. Each member of our audience is too busy worrying about what matters to them.

This means we need to shift our thinking from what we need to what our audience wants. This audience-focus is critical to creating persuasively powerful, effective messages!

Harry A. Overstreet in his 1925 masterpiece of psychology, Influencing Human Behavior, wrote, “Action springs out of what we fundamentally desire…and the best piece of advice which can be given to would-be persuaders, whether in business, in the home, in the school, in politics, is: First, arouse in the other person an eager want…. The secret of all true persuasion is to induce the person to persuade himself.”¹⁸

[18] (Overstreet, 1925)

“Why” Is a Key Question

Think about your reaction when someone unexpectedly asks you to buy something. How often do you stop what you are doing, carefully listen, then say, “Yes, please tell me more!” I suspect the answer is almost never. We are each far too busy to listen to unexpected sales pitches, so we tune them out. Nowhere is this more true than in avoiding web banners and online advertising; even our browsers are designed to block most advertising.

But, what if you are the one selling something—like an idea or improved process or, well, just about anything, actually? How can you get anyone to pay attention?

Well, the first thing is to have a compelling message, which is a combination of both text and images. That gets the viewer’s attention. Next, though, is to give them a reason to act.

For any message to generate action, it needs to answer the question, “Why should I care?”—or—“Why is this important to me?” Remember the acronym from Dale Carnegie: WII-FM. “What’s in it for me?” However, you don’t have a lot of time—or words—to deliver that message. A 15-second video carries about 30 words. What can you say in 30 words that could possibly make a difference to the viewer?

As you’ll learn throughout this book, the answer is to combine strong words with powerful images to cut through the clutter and drive your message home. We are not just “persuading.” We are telling stories, guiding emotions, and setting a course of action for our viewers.

In the past, we could be subtle because people could connect the dots. Show them a picture of a dog then an image of dog food, and most people would say to themselves, “Oh! I maybe should buy this dog food for my pet.”

Not today.

Today we are too distracted. So much so, that this spawned a new acronym: FOMO, the “fear of missing out.” It’s that anxious feeling you get when you haven’t checked your phone in the last, say, five minutes. What are others doing? Are they having more fun than you? For my students, this need for reassurance is almost an addiction.

I see this in my classes. In mid-lecture, students are surreptitiously checking their cell phones, just to make sure they “stay in touch.” Even when I ask them to put their phones away, the devices disappear for only a minute or two.

Another example is extreme multitasking, where an individual is doing several things at the same time. What I’ve discovered is that they may be “doing” multiple activities, but their brain is not deeply engaged with any of them. They are only paying superficial attention. This lack of engagement in any single activity means that they aren’t truly paying attention to your message. The next notification will distract them.

The Call to Action

All this distraction brings me to the Call to Action (CTA), which is a term long used by marketers but is not well-known outside the ad business. The Call to Action is an explicitly stated behavior that you want the audience to do after seeing your image or watching your video.

The Call to Action forcefully tells the audience what you want them to do and where they need to go to do it. Calls to Action are not subtle. They are clear, direct, and delivered with all the force you can muster. Your image cuts into their “isolation bubble.” The message tells them why they need to pay attention. The Call to Action tells them what they need to do next.

Remember, your audience is distracted. They don’t want to do anything different. They need to be strongly motivated to change. Inertia rules.

It is impossible to overemphasize the importance of a clear and direct Call to Action. Even with a Call to Action, your audience may not pay attention. But, at least if you include it, they are more likely to do what you want.

Calls to Action should be used in as many types of marketing content as possible. Writing a good one is crucial and isn’t that hard. Here are five steps, suggested by Ana Gotter, author and freelance business writer:

•    Focus on one goal. The importance of this can’t be overstated. Each ad campaign should focus on one primary goal.

•    Use action words. Also known as verbs, action words are specific and motivating. “Shop,” “Sign up,” “Discover,” “Try,” “Watch,” and “Start” are all examples. They directly tell customers what they should do next, which is what you want.

•    Pick the right formula for the right medium. Tell your audience exactly what’s in it for them. Sometimes, you’ll want to keep your CTAs super short, but no matter what, make sure they’re no more than five or six words. Anything longer takes away from the visual impact.

•    Decide if you want to go positive or negative. This is an important part of the equation that plenty of people forget about. You can make your CTA a positive one or a negative one. Both are effective.

•    Prioritize brevity. All of the best CTAs prioritize brevity. You don’t have to follow a character count, but your CTA and surrounding text should never have any more words than are needed.¹⁹

[19] (Gotter, 2019)

I especially like her last point. We are not writing novels. We are creating haiku.

Key Points

Here is what I want you to remember from this chapter:

•    Persuasion is a choice the viewer makes, not a command you give.

•    Persuasion is an active conversation, built on trust, between you and your audience.

•    Persuasion is a one-on-one conversation, especially because today everyone is watching their own personal screen.

•    Audiences are deeply distracted; focus your message on the audience you want to reach.

•    Your message needs to explain why the audience should act the way you want them to act.

•    A clear Call to Action is essential for your audience to know what you want them to do.

Practice Persuasion

Pretend you need to create a persuasive poster or video for something you like.

Use these to define your subject, audience, and message:

•    What subject do you want to present?

•    Who is your target audience, and why?

•    Persuasion is about change. What change do you want your audience to undertake?

•    Why should someone in your audience be interested in this subject; in other words, why should they care?

•    How does your message change as your media changes?

•    What is your Call to Action?

Write these into a one-page summary, no more, then put it somewhere you can find it. In a few chapters, we’ll return to this for further discussion.