The Magic of Metaphor

Deep Metaphors, Deeper Influence

“The metaphor is perhaps one of man’s most fruitful potentialities. Its efficacy verges on magic, and it seems a tool for creation which God forgot inside one of His creatures when He made him.”—Jos Ortega y Gasset

Perhaps the real magic of metaphors is their potential for profound influence. Harvard Professor Gerald Zaltman and marketing guru Lindsay Zaltman recently released a fascinating book, Marketing Metaphoria, in which they posit this idea: When companies—especially marketers—think about customers, they do not dig beneath the surface. The Zaltmans argue that beneath the surface are deep customer needs that truly—and often unconsciously—drive our customers’ decisions.

To prove this premise, they conducted more than 12,000 in-depth interviews for more than a hundred clients, in more than 30 countries, using the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique, or ZMET. The results? Seven deep metaphors emerged most often, in every sector and country. People who otherwise have little in common—whether cultural background, age, gender, education, occupation, political values, consumer experiences, basic beliefs, religious preference, or almost anything else—shared these metaphors.

An effective marketing strategy, the Zaltmans argue, should consider how to tap into these seven deep metaphors:

• balance—which focuses on justice, equilibrium, and the interplay of elements
• transformation—including changes in substance and circumstances
• journey—involving the meeting of past, present, and future
• container—encompassing inclusion, exclusion, states of being, and other boundaries
• connection—which focuses on the need to relate to oneself and others
• resource—involving acquisitions and their consequences
• control—the sense of mastery, vulnerability, and well-being

Shallow, or surface, metaphors can suggest these deeper metaphors. For instance, in the “I Have a Dream” example, the surface financial metaphors tap into the deeper metaphor of balance. King depicted race inequity as a serious imbalance, and most people gravitate toward correcting imbalances. Marketing Metaphoria offers many more such examples.

As the book’s title suggests, the Zaltmans are speaking to traditional marketers and managers. But interactive marketers, UX professionals, and product managers can benefit from listening to their ideas, as well. These metaphors could inform content strategy, UX strategy, or product strategy, inspire new product or service ideas, and more.

A few examples quickly come to mind. The promotion and content—instructions, button labels, images, and the like—of self-service applications could draw on the control metaphor. Social networking products naturally tap into connection. Product positioning and interactive marketing efforts can evoke metaphors in many different ways. For instance, with one image, Hearing Planet relates its products, hearing aids, to the metaphor of connection, as shown in Figure 2. When older adults lose their hearing, they also lose their ability to participate in conversations and, consequently, the ability to connect with friends and family. A hearing aid restores that ability.

Another example is the way Apple depicts MobileMe. The line “keep everything in sync” coupled with the cloud—holding representations of different core applications such as email and calendar—suggests container. On a shallow level, this helps make the abstract concept of a Web-based service concrete. On a deeper level, MobileMe is attempting to tap into customers’ need to have constant access to their tools—to remain in a state of perpetual access.

In addition to the discovery of the metaphors themselves, I am thrilled to see research that tries to uncover what customers cannot themselves articulate in surveys or simple interviews. I am ecstatic to see strong evidence revealing the subtle yet powerful influences of metaphor on customer thought.

I have not seen anything comparable in the interactive marketing world, which sometimes seems terribly shallow, or even the UX world, which goes deeper. In both of these worlds, we hear much about understanding customer behavior. We also need to understand the customer thought, or perception, that drives the behavior.

An interesting Business Horizons article, “Tacit Meaning in Disguise: Hidden Metaphors in New Product Development and Market Making,” explores metaphor in mental models for product development. I hope this kind of exploration of metaphor continues. If we do not push to understand such thought influences, our mental models and personas will remain incomplete, and our interactive marketing, products, and services will fail to reach their deepest potential.

Getting Practical: Metaphor Dos and Don’ts

”There are few things as toxic as a bad metaphor. You can’t think without metaphors.”—Mary Catherine Bateson

Whether shallow or deep, metaphors offer plenty of benefits. How can we use metaphor well in our content? Consider these guidelines:

• Do use metaphor sparingly, carefully, and respectfully.
  Metaphors take time and effort to develop well. Using too many metaphors can lessen the impact of each metaphor and cause cognitive overload in customers. Furthermore, deep metaphors are powerful, so we should use them in a respectful, not a manipulative way. For instance, I would not want to take a poor product and try to use a deep metaphor to spin its marketing. Finally, Marketing Metaphoria recommends focusing on just one deep metaphor for a product or brand. The book also offers other useful recommendations for applying deep metaphors.
• Don’t mix and match your metaphors.
  Another reason to use metaphor carefully is to avoid mixing metaphors. Mixing metaphors can confuse people, possibly ruining any potential for educating, assisting, or influencing. Usually mixed metaphors are the result of sloppy or rushed thinking, but sometimes they are intentional. One example of a mixed metaphor is from Bonfire of the Vanities, which suggests a comparison to both a bee and a chicken: “All at once, he was alone in this noisy hive with no place to roost.” This may be okay in a literary context, where people want to ponder what they are reading, but likely would not work in other contexts.
• Do take metaphors far enough—but don’t take them too far.
  This guideline is tricky. Achieving this comes more naturally with practice. You want to take a metaphor far enough that the comparison between objects or ideas is clear. At the same time, every metaphor breaks at some point—where two objects or ideas no longer seem alike. You don’t want to take your metaphor to the breaking point and, consequently, perplex your customers. Instead, focus on the comparison, not the contrast. For instance, the term information architecture includes an incredibly useful metaphor for describing this element of user experience, especially to clients who are not familiar with it. However, information architecture, in some ways, is not like building architecture. If you focus on this breaking point, you’ll digress from your metaphor's goal and confuse customers.
• Do think about a metaphor’s connotations.
  Connotations are important to consider, even for educational or assistive metaphors. You do not want unintended connotations to disrupt the customer experience. For instance, if you are describing the efficiency of a product, you probably do not want to compare it to a toilet’s efficiency. Also, consider whether your shallow metaphor is tapping into a deeper metaphor. If so, make sure it’s the right one, as in the “I Have a Dream” example.
• Do make metaphors culturally appropriate.
  As with any descriptive language or imagery, cultural considerations are key. Ensure the ideas or objects you choose for a metaphor are understandable, relatable, and not offensive.
• Do make metaphors brand appropriate.
  Because brand differentiation often involves abstract ideas or characteristics, metaphor offers an opportunity to powerfully reinforce brand. Avoid a metaphor that conflicts with your brand. If yours is a value brand, you might not want to use metaphors that refer to luxury, unless you are trying to convey the idea that the brand offers luxury for less. Furthermore, if your brand tends to focus on one deep metaphor, do not use language that suggests other deep metaphors.
• Do reinforce metaphors with visuals and media.
  Metaphor offers a powerful way of integrating text with visuals and media. A tight integration imbues the experience with the metaphor, giving it greater resonance. For instance, in the earlier Hearing Planet example, the home page—especially its visual—suggests the metaphor. The rest of the site’s content, including a video, could draw on that metaphor more effectively through well-placed, suggestive language and visuals that more clearly position hearing aids as a bridge to friends and family.
• Don't mistake metaphor for marketese.
  Ever since Jakob Nielsen claimed a 124% usability improvement for objective text over marketese, the UX world has hesitated to consider persuasive content, including metaphors. Metaphors are not bombastic marketese. Metaphors are a way of communicating more clearly, pertinently, and deeply. Used well and in ways that don’t interfere with usability, they can enhance the customer experience.
• Do test your metaphors.
  Metaphors can elicit emotions and seem to have meanings you do not intend, so it is important to test them with customers and carefully refine them, as with any content or design.

Conclusion

Metaphor is a not just a useful tool for educating and assisting customers. Metaphor is an alchemy that transforms usable content into richly influential content and good products into treasured products. Let’s continue to explore the magic of metaphor.