MRI Casino Marketing Blog
Images That Get A Response

Even with such a heavy focus on website content, vivid imagery still plays an essential role in today's marketing campaigns. Casinos must design their marketing materials with unique images that help build brand recognition while also considering how one image will work across different platforms and on various computer and mobile screens.

How Responsive Design Can Help

Responsive design can help casinos solve the problem of people using different technologies to access their website. Rather than having to maintain various versions of the same website, responsive design automatically adjusts what the screen displays based on the size and type of technology being used. This sounds like the perfect way to accommodate all users – until it’s time to work with the existing image library.

What to Know About Images and Responsive Design

Images on a website are often static in size, even when the text on the page has been set to accommodate screens of different sizes. These images may be cut off or display improperly unless they are also coded to resize perfectly. Resizing images, however, can cause the quality of the image to suffer – especially if a large or detailed image is scaled so small that it is barely recognizable. Sometimes it’s better to have different images available for different screen sizes to give the viewer a better experience.

The Limitations of Stock Photography

While stock photography may seem affordable and readily accessible, it has some drawbacks. First, if you think an image is just right for your company, it’s likely that someone else will, too. If customers see the same image on two different websites, then both have failed to build brand recognition. Stock photography can also take on a stale quality where the situations represented in each photo feel forced, diluted, or outdated. 

Another consideration is the difficulty of making single images just right for different screen sizes. Add to that the additional loading time for larger images – especially on mobile devices. According to a case study published by Smashing Magazine, improving the visual appeal of marketing materials is only the beginning. Large, detailed images look nice, but they are also a heavy component that can significantly increase load times on mobile devices. If a customer has spotty service and gives up on waiting for your site to load, you’ve potentially lost a customer.

Advantages of Custom Photography

The clearest advantage of custom photography is having complete control over the images. Another distinct advantage is having the expertise of an art director and photographer who know what your goals are. For example, the photography team can shoot one area of your casino and give you an image that will be perfect for displaying on a high-resolution desktop monitor, one that is more tightly focused to display on a small mobile screen, and perhaps a third to use on other promotional materials like brochures and mailers. 

The benefit to having different images of a similar subject is that the feel and perspective of each image is the same. This gives your marketing materials a fluid look across every platform and piece so that customers can easily identify who you are – in other words, you will build brand recognition. At the same time, all your materials and devices displaying your website will have just the right image so that the quality of each experience is as high as possible. 

Set Yourself Apart

So much of what we do on the web is done to make us stand out from the crowd. Stock photography and tired images only help us blend in, no matter how much we try to work with them. The bottom line is that custom photography will give your website a custom look – one that nobody else will be able to duplicate. Utilizing the services of a professional photographer and art director will provide you with the custom image library you need to transform your casino’s website from being just as good as everyone else’s to being the standard that others can only hope to achieve.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/06/18/adapting-to-a-responsive-design-case-study/