I was speaking to an ex-colleague and great mind on digital, Dan Calladine this week. Dan is responsible for insight work and Futures at Aegis Media. He has some great presentations saved in Slideshare. (link here) One of these from last year talks about the fact that “the web is becoming more visual” highlighted by a number of different services such as Pinboard, Flipboard, Hipstamtic, Instagram, etc.
If this is true, then I feel we are entering into The Visual Economy. The Visual Economy being somewhere where brand’s worth, integrity and transparency is defined in terms of its visual identity. This would mean brands are not just about what they say, but how they show it. It means that an increasing value can be placed on a brand’s portrayal of itself in Flickr, Vimeo, YouTube, Photobucket, and even how its employees use different visual technologies to show their part in the brand.
The Visual Economy therefore puts a value on how these images are shared and the meaning that these images bring to the forefront of the consumer mind. It means they need to convey the same message that a text description does. It would mean that Google’s search engines place more importance on the visual identity and values of a site, then simply well written SEO text.
I think the drivers behind the Visual Economy are below.
