Do Companies Keep Hero Image and Video Swaps After Testing Them?
- By Ali Abouelatta
- n = 307
- Published
- Updated
- 2 min read
- landing-page · design · experiments · ux-patterns · web
Short answer
Across Lazyweb's 4,814-experiment corpus, 307 detected experiments (6%) swapped hero media — an image, video, illustration, or animation — spanning 122 companies.source[1]source[2] Among classifiable changes, additions of hero media outnumber removals about 3.7-to-1 (52 added vs 14 removed).source[3] Hero is also the single most-annotated change area in the corpus, at 405 experiments.source[4]
307 detected experiments swapped hero media across 122 companies, and hero is the most-annotated change area at 405 experiments — Lazyweb Research, July 2026.
Bar chart · Experiments
Experiments — Direction of change
One block is about 8.1 Experiments
- Added
- 52
- Removed
- 14
- Mixed
- 14
- Changed / unclassified
- 227
The finding: the hero is the most-worked area
The hero draws more experimentation than any other page area: 405 experiments are annotated as touching the hero, ahead of offer (281), pricing (229), and CTA (225).source[4] Narrowing to media swaps specifically — hero co-occurring with image/video/illustration/media/visual/animation — there are 307 such experiments across 122 companies.source[1] So a hero media swap is a mainstream tactic, not an edge case.
Direction of change
Among hero-media experiments Lazyweb could classify by direction:
| Direction | Experiments |
|---|---|
| Added | 52 |
| Removed | 14 |
| Mixed | 14 |
| Changed / unclassified | 227 |
Source: direction heuristic.source[3] Additions lead removals ~3.7:1 among classifiable rows, but 227 of 307 are swaps that replaced one media asset with another rather than adding or removing — which is what 'media swap' usually means in practice.
A named example
Epidemic Sound reworked its hero from 'You bring the idea. We bring the sound.' to 'Bring your stories to life. Just add sound.' with a '2.5 billion times per day' scale claim, and changed the above-fold brand case-study image grid.source[5] Inferred rationale: front-loading the licensing category's two core objections — legitimacy and legal safety — before the CTA. The media change carried a positioning change with it.
Caveats
These are detected UI diffs with inferred rationale, not measured results.source[6] Unlike discounts or social proof, the stat pack has no persistence/retention proxy for hero media, so this page reports prevalence and direction only — do not infer 'swaps get kept' from these numbers. The 307 count is keyword-matched ('hero' + a media word).
Real in-market screens
Screens from real, in-market apps, tracked by Lazyweb Research.
Apple Fitness1179 × 2556opens the full image 
Sora602 × 1308opens the full image 
Expedia1290 × 2796opens the full image 
Fotmob1206 × 2622opens the full image
The numbers
| # | Stat | Computed from |
|---|---|---|
| [1] | 307 hero-media experiments across 122 companies | tactic_mentions__hero_media_swaps |
| [2] | 4,814 total detected experiments (hero media = 6%) | total_detected_experiments; 307/4814 |
| [3] | 52 added / 14 removed / 14 mixed / 227 unclassified | direction_split__hero_media |
| [4] | Hero 405 / offer 281 / pricing 229 / cta 225 annotated experiments | annotation_area_breakdown |
| [5] | Epidemic Sound reworked hero copy + case-study image grid with a '2.5 billion/day' claim | qualitative: hero media swaps, epidemic-sound, 2026-07-04 |
| [6] | 0 measured outcomes (learnings are LLM-inferred) | family universe note |
Methodology
Universe: 4,814 detected experiments (362 companies) in Lazyweb's ~800-app mobile corpus. Hero-media tagged by keyword co-occurrence; direction by add/remove heuristic (227 of 307 unclassified). No retention proxy exists for this tactic. Detected diffs with inferred rationale, not measured results. July 2026 pull.
Sources
- [1]
Lazyweb Research analysis of 4,814 detected experiments (362 companies, mobile-app corpus), July 2026
307 experiments mention hero + (image/video/illustration/media/visual/animation) across 122 companies.
- [2]
Lazyweb Research analysis of 4,814 detected experiments (362 companies, mobile-app corpus), July 2026
307 of 4,814 total detected experiments (6%).
- [3]
Lazyweb Research analysis of 4,814 detected experiments (362 companies, mobile-app corpus), July 2026
Direction heuristic: 52 added / 14 removed / 14 mixed / 227 unclassified.
- [4]
Lazyweb Research analysis of 4,814 detected experiments (362 companies, mobile-app corpus), July 2026
Annotated change-area breakdown: hero 405, offer 281, pricing 229, cta 225.
- [5]
Lazyweb Research analysis of 4,814 detected experiments (362 companies, mobile-app corpus), July 2026
Epidemic Sound (2026-07-04): hero copy and case-study image grid changed.
- [6]
Lazyweb Research analysis of 4,814 detected experiments (362 companies, mobile-app corpus), July 2026
Learnings are LLM-inferred hypotheses, never measured A/B outcomes.
Source: Lazyweb Research — proprietary analysis of real, in-market app screens. Cite as Lazyweb Research, 2026-07-07.