The human mind learns more effectively through visuals than by reading or hearing. It’s because our brain is hardwired to grasp visual information faster – More than 50 percent of the cortex, the brain’s surface, is devoted to processing visual information that can process an image in only 13 milliseconds.

This means that people respond more to the message they receive in images or actions. So, as we see The Role of Visual Thinking in Marketing, it will be helpful first to understand the human thought process.

In other words, to look at how visual thinking enables us to understand ideas or concepts, we also have to see how visual thinking shapes internal speech. 

We can say that images, colors, shapes, and drawings play a significant role in creating our perceptions. We envision the ideas we like every time – developing new scenarios in mind. That is why whenever we see anything supporting our internal thought process, we instantly get attached to it or, sometimes, exhibit Cognitive Bias. The same happens when we make purchasing decisions. 

We will look at two case studies, one from medical research performed at Harvard and one from the business setting, that will tell how Visual Thinking enables us to craft pertinent Marketing Communication.  

Verbal Thinking and Visual Thinking Romance: A Harvard Medical Research.

As we all know, the brain processes information in two modes; either verbally or visually. When we think about a place, TV show, or personality, we think visually, but when we prepare a lecture or presentation for an upcoming event, we create inner speech in words and sentences. Interestingly, we arrange words and sentences in visuals, even during verbal thinking. For instance, try to solve 3 times 14 in your mind. Did you see the numbers? 

So, do we think entirely in visuals?

Elinor Amit and Evelina Fedorenko, from Harvard Medical School, recently devised a research paper, An asymmetrical relationship between verbal and visual thinking: Converging evidence from behavior and fMRI, published in Neuroimage. According to their study, our brain draws images to accompany our inner speech whenever we think verbally. It happens more or less whether we’re solving a mathematics equation, fixing a car engine, drafting a letter, or planning a budget. 

Amit and her colleagues conducted an experiment by asking volunteers a series of questions and then scanning them through MRI scanners. In the first round, participants have given a pair of words and asked to create sentences and tell how clear the images their brain created unintentionally. In the second phase, volunteers were asked to create pictures, but this time they were questioned about the sentence their brain made unconsciously. According to Amit, “What we found was there was no difference in the vividness of images. The subjects didn’t care if we asked them to create an image or not; it was vivid regardless of what we asked them to do.” 

So the subjects, at first hand, were not intended to think verbally unless instructed to do so. Because the experiment was based entirely on the participant’s self-reporting, Amit and her team then used fMRI to monitor brain activities. Before the examination, a few images and sentences were shown to the participants that were recalled during the brain scan. Here are the key findings: 

• By using fMRI, researchers examined the part of the brain that deals with recognizing objects and shapes. 
• They found that deliberate inner speech rendered more vigorous verbal thinking. 
• Whether they were thinking verbally or visually, their brain was generating images continuously. 
• But interestingly, when participants were involved in conscious visual thinking, the researchers noticed that the visual region of the brain was relatively less active than during verbal thinking. 
• So, what were they actually visualizing?
• It leads to a conclusion; although the human brain generates visuals all time, they are not like a projector running a high-res film; however, it’s very blurry, and the whole process is improvised.

Here’s the big takeaway from An asymmetrical relationship between verbal and visual thinking: “We can’t really go beyond the here and now and think in abstract ways about other people, places, or times. This is the way our brains are wired, and there may be an evolutionary reason for this [because] we haven’t always been verbalizers. For a long time, we understood our world visually, so maybe language is an add-on.”

Visual Thinking in Business Settings: Willemien Brand 

The Harvard Medical research is an excellent breakthrough in understanding the thinking process. It helped to crack the code of the human brain’s internal process and could be copied to make an internal communication model in the corporate environment. Visualizer and a designer Willemien Brand made a roadmap on how one uses visual thinking effectively to boost enterprise agility, break down silos and increase employee and customer engagement.

In visual thinking, our brain juxtaposes ideas, objects, situations, and personalities to understand their relation and meaning. Intelligent people, instead of hurling information, very brilliantly shape and construct listeners’ visual thinking. For example, most motivational speakers use a story, joke, or historical event right off the bat. By doing so, they allow listeners to use their own imaginations to get to the topic. After that, they talk about relatable dilemmas. Once the audience paints the whole picture in their mind, the speaker then introduces her idea as a savior and portrays how every situation could be challenged. 

Visual thinking also helps us to attach emotionally to the information. For instance, a friend of yours recently visited a town and tells you about her unique experience there. Imagine this is the town where you were born and raised. How would you listen to and process the information? Will you see your childhood and get emotionally attached to the conversation, or will you hear it like any other story? In her book, Visual Thinking; Empowering people & organizations through visual collaboration, Willemien states, “It is not enough to focus on a person’s head. You also have to touch their heart.” 

Although visual thinking occurs in one’s mind, the same rule can be applied to influence and motivate the Mastermind Principle. Willemien explained how visual thinking works in business settings as well: 

1. Visions are just thoughts, but visualization gives them proper directions and purpose.
2. Visual thinking empowers us to build a clear positioning statement that helps align our message accordingly. 
3. Thinking in visuals allows us to rehearse the upcoming event, so we are prepared to make timely, practical decisions rather than getting stuck in spaghetti thinking. 
4. Finding the customer journey and customer persona is the actual game of modern marketing. Visual thinking helps to divide customers into segments according to their demographics, psychographics, attitudinal needs, and product needs.
5. Problem-solving is not just about dealing with unexpected challenges; it’s also about visualizing what can be improved in the current way of running a business. 

In a nutshell, Willemien regards visual thinking as the most practical way to practice information before handing it over to the audience. Similar to Amit’s research, she is convinced that visuals convey the broader meaning of information that is not achievable through other forms. 

Persuasion in Visuals Has a Big Impact

Many research experiments and surveys explain how the human brain receives, interprets, and stores information visually. But it is fascinating to know that visual thinking can be transported among a group of people or to a broader audience. Drawings, shapes, and colors – if arranged uniquely to create a story – convey such an impactful message that might not be possible in other means of communication.   

For instance, dive into google analytics and scan users’ engagement on websites and social media platforms. You will discover that people prefer receiving information in visuals rather than text or audio. 

Now it’s apparent that quintessential visual thinking helps build a highly targeted marketing message that ideally constructs the audience’s visual thinking.