Visual Depiction Effect, notably studied by Elder & Krishna in 2012, describes the way in which being able to enter in to a mental interaction with a product when seeing it advertised enhances our desire to buy it. People are more inclined to want to buy a product when it is shown in a way which helps them to visualise themselves using it. Simply ensuring that your product is orientated in such a way that it could easily be picked up or used by a right-handed person (as the majority of people are) can vastly increase the interest a potential customer will show in this product. Similarly, it can also be effective to display a product being used by someone, without its packaging, or accompanied by a utensil or tool that we might use in real life when using said product (such as showing a spoon with a yoghurt), etc.
Advertising a product using these tactics helps to reduce the mental effort required on the part of your customer in order to connect with the product and imagine it as part of their lives. The Visual Depiction Effect is therefore very useful to consider when coming up with sales and marketing strategies and is particularly vital for online marketing where imagery plays an essential role as customers are unable to actually see the physical product.