A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words'
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The phrase emerged in the US during the early part of the 20th century and highly attributed to Frederick R Barnard. He published a piece in Printer's Ink in December 1921 commending the effectiveness of graphics in advertising with the title, 'One look is worth a thousand words.' Barnard said the phrase's source to be oriental by adding, 'so said a famous Japanese philosopher, and he was right.'
In March of 1927, Printer's Ink, printed another form of the phrase, this time suggesting a Chinese origin ' 'Chinese proverb. One picture is worth ten thousand words.' With the change from 'one thousand' to 'ten thousand' and from Japan to China as the source, something just didn't seem right. The attribution in both was invented; Barnard simply believed an Asian origin would give it more credibility. Other sources attributed his proverb to Confucius.
The phrase, 'A picture is worth a thousand words,' has re-emerged thanks to, Dr. David Forbes, President of Forbes Consulting Group, LLC and the creator of MindSight. Dr. Forbes was named a 2012 Advertising Research Foundation Great Minds Award Finalist in the category of innovation for his work on MindSight technology.
Researchers have long understood that consumers' emotions are an important focus for business learning. But traditional research techniques ' even traditional projective techniques ' can't really help learn about emotions ' because they all require respondents to answer questions by talking ' and the emotional brain can't talk.
Forbes Consulting's MindSight changes all that. MindSight is a new way to gather data directly from the emotional brain by 'talking in pictures.' To let consumers talk in pictures, MindSight uses a validated library of images whose emotional meanings have been established through extensive consumer research. Then MindSight presents these images in a proprietary rapid-exposure / rapid-response technique that forces responses from the 'emotional gut' without time for 'editing' by the rational brain.
In its 26-year history, Forbes Consulting Group has become a valued resource for Fortune 500 companies. For more information, including the opportunity to receive a demo of MindSight, please contact sales@forbesconsulting.com.