Advertisements have a specific objective: to sell an idea. Ideas can be to sell a product, service, or even to deter consumers from specific products. Whatever the reason, advertisements aim to persuade.
This can often be a difficult task for advertisements that use still images. Conceptual photography is a common technique for illustrating a complete sales message in one photograph.
In this ad from Tabasco, they seek to show off the heat of their sauce in an image to encourage the customer to buy it. Concept photography was used to create this idea by combining the bottle with a fire extinguisher.
Of course, not all advertisements are designed to sell a product or service. Some are designed to discourage the consumption of a specific product. Anti-smoking advertisements have taken full advantage of the ideas of conceptual photography to illustrate the concept of “smoking kills” in several ways.
As you can see, even advertising ideas can be big and difficult to communicate. Conceptual photographers use simple, yet effective advertising to communicate a message to a consumer. This type of photography allows for the illustration of an entire sales concept in a single image for use in a magazine or on a billboard.
Source: https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-conceptual-photography/
