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7 ways your brand can visualize for innovative success

A picture’s worth a thousand words—so how much is a video worth? Visualization is an important part of the innovative process, from sketching upstream ideas to prototyping to creating wow-worthy ads and commercials.

Visualizing isn’t just for athletes

Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps envisions how the race will go before it even begins.

By the start of the race, Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn has already run the race 100 times in her head.

Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky says he skates to where the puck will be, not where it has been.

And NBA all-star Kobe Bryant would close his eyes and put himself in different situations on the court in order to find success.

Visualization is a key strategy for the world’s most successful athletes. That’s because it allows them to picture infinite scenarios so they can address possible problems, pivot intentionally, and find more success in the end.

The same can be said for your brand through visualization tools like prototyping, video production, ideation, innovation sessions, and more. This can help your brand find more success when ideating, launching, and marketing.

7 tips for successfully visualizing

Prototype when possible

Whether your prototype is something physical, like when Steve Jobs hand-soldered his first Apple computer, or digitally rendered, it’s important to be able to visualize what your product looks like as you design it.

Sketch it out

If you’re not a handy person or digital guru, have no fear. Even simple, quick sketches can help you visualize your product’s strengths. Or, you can seek out the services of places like Upstream 360, a product marketing agency that uses live illustrators to capture your ideas in real time.

Get metaphorical

This sounds counter-intuitive, but visualization doesn’t have to be, well, visual. Capturing your product in a creative metaphor can do wonders for understanding how your product works and how you might tell your product’s story.

Take off your lawyer hat

When visualizing, try to take off your lawyer hat and get creative! Come up with new ways of thinking about your product in the visualization stage and worry about legal later.

Spark with AI

There are so many AI tools for visualizing…use that to your advantage. AI is a great place to start when it comes to creating unique visuals, videos, and copy. But don’t stop with AI…be sure to take those sparks to the next level!

Test for success

Product concept testing allows you to create prototypes, storyboards, and other product concepts that you can put in front of consumers to help you understand what is working and what isn’t so you can pivot successfully on future iterations.

Use the visualization experts

Whether it’s ideating, prototyping, illustrating, or creating a full-blown ad commercial telling your product’s story, Upstream 360 is the world’s only product communication agency that can take your product and visualize it for better and quicker pivoting and more successful launches.

Interested in holding an ideation session? Need help telling and visualizing your product’s story? Check out our work and reach out to us today. We can’t wait to get started!