Digital Corporate Communication and Visual Communication

Particularly during the last decade, information and communication technology (ICT) advancements have brought a number of opportunities to people and organizations, including possibilities to utilize other forms of communicative expressions beyond words. A ‘visual turn’ (Machin, 2014), which essentially underlines the increasing role of images and visual elements in people’s daily lives, has taken place thanks to the development of visual apps and high-definition cameras installed on smartphones, ready to capture the world around the phone’s owner. Visual communication – that is, communication based on images – is currently the preferred form of communication among young adults and teenagers who use visual content to convey stories, emotions, and ideas to others (Baron, 2019; Pew Research Center, 2018). Organizations have exponentially increased their offering of digital visual contents beyond traditional product advertisements as a way to convey stories and emotions that can be easily shared via digital devices. Effective visual communication can create a competitive position for organizations and companies in their digital corporate communications. While opportunities to leverage digital visual content for corporate communication have increased, professionals are still faced with challenges related to the planning of visual content production (Zerfass et al., 2017). This chapter deals with the phenomenon of the ‘visual turn’ (Machin, 2014) in digital corporate communication, and offers an overview of the most important findings related to digital visual communication research. The chapter also introduces the reader to a newly developed theoretical framework: the Four Realms of Digital Visual Experience. This theoretical framework is an interdisciplinary theoretical effort addressing the changes in the digital media ecosystem and in digital consumer behaviours and expectations. The framework integrates elements of visual content production with existing knowledge about visual communication and experiential marketing. The chapter also discusses drawbacks and challenges related to organizational efforts in addressing the visual turn. It then concludes with an illustrative example of the applicability of the proposed framework and includes the authors’ reflections on its limits and suggestions for further research avenues.