Visual Art Can Boost Advertisting, Study Says

ATHENS, Ga.—A new University of Georgia study has found that exposure to visual art in advertising, even if the exposure is fleeting, makes consumers evaluate products more positively, ScienceDaily.com reports. Researchers conducted three studies, including posing at a restaurant as waiters, showing 100 patrons sets of silverware in black velvet boxes with either a print of Vincent van Gogh's Cafe Terrace at Night or a photograph of a similar scene. Diners rated the silverware in the van Gogh boxes as more luxurious. The two other studies showed that "a relatively unfamiliar artwork can successfully compete with a famous celebrity in conveying a luxury appeal," and "the content of the specific artwork is not necessarily important, but that general connotations of art matter," according to ScienceDaily. Researchers said all of this points to art as a powerful marketing tool.

“Visual art has historically been used as a tool for persuasion,” said Henrik Hagtvedt, who authored the study with Vanessa M. Patrick, and who is an artist himself. “It has been used to sell everything from religion to politics to spaghetti sauce to the artist’s image. It’s about time we develop a scientific basis to understand how it actually works."

The study will appear an upcoming issue of the Journal of Marketing Research.