The Effect of Visual Elements in Direct Print Advertising of Diary Products on the Consumers’ Recall: An Experimental Field Study

Significant costs are incurred annually for printed advertising in marketing management; if such advertisement lacks the necessary effectiveness, they will take many opportunities from the organization in addition to posing financial resources. However, this effectiveness might be partly due to the proper design of the visual elements. It seems that there is a need for further studies regarding the identification of the important elements and the design of the advertisements based on the marketing principles. This study aims to identify the main elements in printed advertising design as a medium of communication with the consumer and their relationship with the customers’ recall, as well as to determine the effect of the quality of these elements on the degree of recall. In other words, what are the main visual elements in the design of printed advertisements of food industry (dairy industry), which of these elements must be considered, and whether these elements have a significant relationship with the customers’ recall and if so, how can the quality of these elements in the design help recall the advertisements. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between visual elements and to determine the effective range in recalling the advertising in three stages.

This research is regarded within the interpretive paradigm in terms of philosophical foundations along with an applied orientation and it is a cross-sectional and experimental field experiment in terms of research approach. In the first stage, the visual elements of the advertisement were determined through a systematic review method and the three elements of color, image, and logo were selected based on the content validity ratio according to the experts’ opinions. In the second stage, 5 printed advertisements of Pegah Dairy Company which contained different ranges of colors, images, and logos were determined by a panel of experts. Then, 341 students of Shiraz University who were non-randomly selected based on available sampling were asked to complete a researcher-made questionnaire. The data were collected using experimental field tests.

Findings

The findings showed that the elements of color, image, and logo had the most significant relationship with the customers’ recall, respectively. Regarding color, the cold, neutral, and warm color spectrums had the greatest effects, respectively. Regarding the visual element of the image, the use of a real image, static image, as well as the lack of any ceremony-specific image and logo were reported to have a positive relationship with the customers’ recall.

Conclusion

It seems that cold and then neutral colors should be used as the dominant colors in designing effective advertisements in the dairy industry, and the use of warm colors should be avoided as much as possible. Moreover, using real images of dairy products rather than particular images, cartoon, and dynamic images should be taken into account. Besides, inserting the company logo in the advertisements can significantly increase the customers’ recall of the advertisement.