Visual Implied Motion in Marketing: A Dual‐Route Framework of Perceptual Persuasion

Journal article : Review

Depicting movement in static marketing stimuli, referred to as ‘implied motion’, is widely used across packaging, logos, and advertising, and multimodal brand communications. Despite growing evidence of its persuasive impact, the underlying psychological mechanisms and boundary conditions remain theoretically fragmented. This systematic review synthesizes 31 experimental studies and integrates the findings within the Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion. The evidence shows that implied motion first enhances perceptual salience and attentional allocation. From there, its effects operate through two distinct routes. When accompanied by narrative context, implied motion facilitates central‐route elaboration through mental simulation, engagement, empathy, and narrative transportation, strengthening brand and product attitudes. Under rapid processing, it functions as a peripheral cue, triggering heuristic inferences (e.g., energy, freshness) and fluency, increasing purchase intention, willingness to pay, and choice. Both routes are moderated by consumer‐level factors (e.g., consumption goal, involvement) and design‐level factors (e.g., product type, brand‐motion fit). By integrating evidence across attention, elaboration, heuristic inference, and attitudinal and behavioural outcomes, this review provides a theoretically grounded account of how dynamic cues embedded in static visuals shape consumer judgment. Implications for marketing strategy and future research directions are discussed.

Authors: Zhang, T; Spence, C

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Wiley
• Journal: Psychology and Marketing
• Article number: mar.70164
• Publication date: 2026-05-06
• Acceptance date: 2026-04-25
• DOI: 10.1002/mar.70164
• EISSN: 1520-6793
• ISSN: 0742-6046
• Language: English
• Keywords: logo; implied motion; dynamism; persuation; elaboration likelihood model; mental simulation
• Subtype: Review