Two top-of-mind topics collided yesterday when I was forwarded a dynamite article about the technology that goes into the catamarans currently racing in the America’s Cup. My affinity for sailing overlapped with my day job – the article provided another reminder of how it behooves all of us to always consider using visuals to help tell our story. Read this, this or this, and you will immediately see they are engaging and impactful examples of visuals that help convey a complex topic. (And, they happen to be tremendous images of amazing sailboats, if you like to see such a thing.)
Back to my day job.
I didn’t have to look far to find another good example of the power of visual assets. Our LoJack team supported the launch of the “Drive 4 Pledges Day” initiative with this infographic aimed at highlighting leading driving distractions and to provide tips for staying safe. Not only is it a powerful tool for the end audience – who doesn’t appreciate and value easy-to-understand content? – but it’s an equally important asset to share with media and across social channels. It’s clear and content-rich, and directly aligned with trends in PR and social media.
As our category continues to evolve, story-telling is once again complemented by supporting visuals (see 20 years ago when marcom materials were a significant line on any marketing budget) and particularly important when a complex, slightly confusing or highly technical topic needs to be conveyed to a key audience. Beyond infographics, the visual story-telling process now includes icons, logos and other social media-friendly representations of key and priority messages. We’re telling a visual story with many of our clients, and have been at the front of this trend with Studio-C, our full-service creative services group that delivers impactful videos and graphics.
So, how certain are we that visual story-telling in our category is here to stay? Well, we’re investing further into the initiative by hiring new and talented professionals to our creative team. Just this week we welcomed Jennifer Mills as a senior graphic designer, and Sanford Paek as our agency’s first Director of Sales and Account Management. Jennifer honed her skills at a number of high-profile agencies, most recently at Burlington-based Davies-Murphy Group, now owned by Lewis PR. Sanford, whom I’ve known for over a decade while he managed services at Business Wire and Thomson-Reuters, is the ideal professional to engage with prospects and clients about bridging the gap between the client’s business objectives and their go-to-market communications program, and our creative team. Like all of us here at Matter, I’m enthused about Jennifer and Sanford’s arrival – and looking forward to doing even more to tell our clients’ stories visually.
Are you using visuals to tell you story? Care to share any with me?