What Makes a Picture?
Colin Hawkins/Getty Images
Well, what does make a picture? We talk about trends, boomers, the explosion of the Hispanic market in the US, what colors are hot for spring or fall and the list goes on and on…And that’s all great, but isn’t there more to it? What happens when you dig deeper? What happens when you really try to get into the consumer psyche around how they respond to imagery based on what’s happening in their lives? Can we make better pictures as a result?
In 2006, we, the Creative Research team, started a new journey and we called it the MAP Report: what Makes a Picture. We spent 4 months looking at 50,000 photo requests, spoke to 500 customers, and visually analyzed over 2,000 print and TV campaigns from around the globe. We further analyzed customer behavior on our website, search terms, buying patterns, concepts and subjects and visual analysis of our own pictures, etc. Last, but certainly not least, we studied consumer behavior in London, Paris, Munich, NYC, LA, Sydney, Tokyo, Beijing and Sao Paulo. The result was the first MAP report we called One Life (whew).
One Life is about the trends resulting from consumers on overload - a need for grounding, to trust someone who’s real, a need to simplify our lives. It’s a reflection on the influence of women in the work force and a whole lot more.
We hope the report gives insight into our visual language and the way we visually communicate with one another, today and tomorrow, about the things we have in common and the things we don’t. We’re still using it to influence the pictures we’re creating today. These trends don’t disappear like next year’s new black, they tend to evolve and take on new shape. Consequently Guru Joe, Monotasking, the Confessional Consumer and the rest of the gang continue to provide us fertile ground for debate and brainstorming.
Take a look at the excerpts, I would love to hear your thoughts. We’ve got a new MAP launching here in the next month, it’s called AspEn. And that’s all I’m sayin’ - today anyway…