Stereotypical images have become a significant concern in e-commerce, the main issue being whether they should be used in advertising or not and what is their purpose. I had a hard time with them, too, so I decided to take a deeper look into it, I did my research, and I wrote this article with my findings.
Stereotypical imagery is an oversimplification of something more complex than its being portrayed: they can be used for different such as;
Those among others are reasons to use stereotypical imagery. This article will be a guide on how you can use them effectively
Please find out the importance of using stereotypical imagery, how it should be used, and different types of images. In addition, get to know the recommendations of images. Read on to learn more about stereotypical imagery.
In eCommerce, a picture is worth a thousand words. When advertising, a customer will notice the image first before anything else. Stereotypical imagery can be defined as an oversimplification of something that is much more complex than its being portrayed. Generally, it is used in advertising your brand. Common example of stereotypical imagery is using kids, racial, and gender roles images.
The stereotypical images represent themself in a way that does not exhaust a brand's entire reality. That gets us to the question, are stereotypical images any important to your business? Let's look at ways stereotypical photos can be used in business.
When presenting a solution to parents.
Your website sells goods related to kids, like diapers or baby wipes. No matter how you look at it, kids have to be used in advertising. Kids make the advertising cute and portray happiness; let's say the advert is about a diaper that notifies a parent that a change of color thoroughly soils it. The principal benefactor in this advert will be the business owner and the parent, but the imagery will be the child.
To represent beauty and culture.
As corny as it may sound, women's imagery is a true definition of beauty and culture. Let's talk about a cleaning company, rarely will you rarely see an advertisement with a man or a child? Because of culture. How about a cleaning detergent? You'll see an ad with a woman doing laundry. These stereotypical images will bring more traffic to your site; they will want to buy your products. And the good news is that you will get both genders to purchase from you; men will take the detergents to their sisters, wives, mothers, or daughters.
To target specific demographics.
You may think that using a racial advertisement is wrong. Generally, it depends on your reason behind it. You may target a different demographic area and have a broad appeal, which is very common in advertising and marketing. Let's say you are in the USA where the majority are whites; you get your advertisement using black men images, at the end of the day, you'll get both black and whites to buy your product or services. It will be a win for your business.
To represent your dominant business color.
You may choose to use pink-colored images simply because your company deals with female stuff. People may view it as being stereotypical, but then it's for the benefit of your company. Use colors that appeal to the products or services you offer. It would be funny for a male shop to advertise their products in pink hues.
Myths of stereotype images
There are several myths associated with stereotypical images. For instance, some people believe that stereotypical images focus too much on one side and completely forget the other. Of which that is not true, the goal of stereotypical photos is to deliver the message clearly, but they end up being misunderstood.
Please look at a men's sports shop; they use stereotypical images for advertising, but that doesn't mean the shop focuses on men only; even women access the shop. The fact that they use male images in marketing is beneficial to them as a business since the dominant product is for males.
Love, at first sight, is real. A beautiful picture will draw customers to fall in love with your products and eventually buy them. Image impact has a lot to do with the success of your business. You should make your images so appealing that customers can't get enough of looking at them. The creation of images should start at the early stages of your website design. Guru solutions create the most irresistible and appealing websites.
There are a variety of images you can choose from. It would be best to use an image that compliments your site; here is how guru solutions refer to each category and its purpose.
| Types of images | Their purpose |
| Banner/hero | They are large, quality images primarily used as a slideshow or as a background's homepage. |
| Featured | They are the most used images and represent a collection that gives viewers an idea of what to expect. |
| Product | They are images of the physical products you offer and are used on several pages but primarily on product description pages. |
| Badges | They are customized labels you may love to create for your products. Their primary purpose is to highlight awards, new sales, best sales, custom sales, or even to recognize a special occasion of your customers, such as a birthday or wedding anniversary. |
| Icons |
These are the smaller images on social media icons, such as search icons or shopping bag icons. |
Images Recommendations
A variety of themes use a center focal point, which means the center of the image must be visible while cropping to fit different screen sizes. If you need a focal point in another part of the image, then you will be forced to have it customized.
It would help if you did not have text on images intended for slideshows or background to avoid seeing the text out of focus on smaller or larger screens. If you must put a text, consider a background image that is not visually clustered or contradicting the text's color: for legibility reasons.
Featured images should be more significant in size to serve a visually appealing and versatile purpose. Texts can be placed above, below, or next to the picture. In some cases, you can choose to have the text within the image. Their sizes depend on your website's design, although smaller sizes are highly recommended to reduce long load time.
Icons should be sharp; they should be designed as a scalable vector graphics (SVGs) design rather than JPEGS: this will ensure that the image can be resized without affecting its quality. It also makes it possible to convert the image into a font set.
Badges are relatively small; they should be a minimum of 150px by 150px. If you want your buyers to be able to zoom in, your images should have a minimum width of 2000px, not just badges but all your images.
Stereotypical images may seem like a bad option that should be avoided entirely by any eCommerce business, mainly because of all the myths spread around. However, they are as important as any other form of marketing, access your business well and decide whether stereotypical images will be of any help. Use them as they are supposed to, and ensure your message is not misunderstood but adequately delivered to the right target.
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