Have you ever seen a marketing campaign and your first thought was: “That was really clever!”? Typically, such a campaign probably involved some sort of humor or emotion, but likely it involved the use of a metaphor.
Why do I say that?
Metaphors are often the most efficient way to employ some sort of creativity in a campaign. They basically bridge the gap between area-specific knowledge, data or emotion by translating complex ideas into familiar, relatable images or concepts. The use of metaphors essentially helps customers visualize the value and connect with your campaign on a deeper level.
But they’re often underused in marketing.
Why?
Because they often involve connecting (at least on the surface) disparate concepts, perhaps from different disciplines or fields. To execute these things well, in other words, you have to be creative and know something, or have some familiarity across different disciplines or areas of study.
For example, one of the things that I often tell students in my digital marketing class at Georgetown University’s School of Continuing Studies is that, as a marketer, it helps to be as well-rounded as possible. Ideally, you should learn about sports, technology, medicine, fitness, sociology, science, foreign languages, history, economics, finance, philosophy, psychology, etc. – as many areas as possible.
The reason is that any base of knowledge helps you see the connections between different fields. “Connection” is the key word here. Let me explain with an example.
It’s a Dark Time: The Lesson of the Great Masters
Many believe today is a dark time in our history. Our government officials, led by Orange Nightmare, are arresting and deporting immigrants, not just those who commit crimes but simply exist here in the country. They’re killing our own citizens who protest those actions. They’re threatening to invade allies, and they’re removing heads of foreign governments. They’ve cut foreign food aid, which the numbers suggest will kill millions in Africa, and also devastated our farmers who supplied the food. The list of the absurd, the illegal, the economically stupid and the pure evil and cruelty of it all could go on and on.
These are cartoon villains who now rule.
But for those who know history, this isn’t the only time that people saw darkness.
For those who have been in my digital marketing class or done any training we’ve conducted at Marketing Nice Guys on content development, they might remember an example I often give about the Great Masters, a tip I learned from my uncle Marshall Arisman, who was rather famous modern artist himself and longtime head of the MFA program at the School of Visual Arts in New York.
The Great Masters were, of course, the great Dutch painters of the 17th‑century Golden Age. Painters such as Rembrandt van Rijn or Johannes Vermeer.
They too believed that their world was a dark place. And, in fact, painted in such a way that represented those beliefs: They started with a dark canvas, which reflected the world as they saw it. From there, they added light as they went. Their job, as they believed it, was to “pull light from the dark.”[1]
[1] A bit of social currency, indeed, if you look at the paintings from the era, the paint is actually lightest where it is thickest. Next time you go to a museum, you can see this.
A nice sentiment, isn’t it?
From a marketing standpoint, that’s actually gold if you think about it. Light/dark. Good/evil. Enlightened/unenlightened.
Could a coach, consultant or trainer use that metaphor? Absolutely. How about:
- Health, mental health, and wellness: (Campaign: “Out of the darkness and into clarity or calm.”)
- Financial services and fintech: (Campaign: “From financial fog to financial literacy/enlightenment.”)
- Cybersecurity & data privacy (Campaign: “We protect you from the dark web / unseen threats and bring everything into the light.”)
- Education, learning platforms, and “thought leadership” (Campaign: “Rise above the darkness, into the light.”)
Those are just a few examples.
The point is, that a lot of industries could use a story about the Great Masters (or something similar like that) in their marketing. It could easily illustrate something their trying to sell or perhaps convey an easily digestible narrative about the company.
That’s the power of a metaphor.
Why Don’t More Companies Use Metaphors in Their Marketing?
One of the things that we often take a look at is the way many companies market to customers. Much of it is: “here are the benefits, and here’s how it helps you.” And that’s all fine. But as Steve Jobs knew well, the best marketing helps you sell the experience or emotion of it, not the features.
Metaphors are a great way to communicate that experience or emotion because the anchoring reference point is easily understood or digestible for the core audience(s).
But that’s where it gets hard.
You need some creativity to do it. Creativity, after all, is about shared understanding. It requires companies and their marketers to know not just their own field or industry, but likely a lot of others – subject areas that may not seem to have anything to do with the industry in question. And it requires them to connect that latter knowledge or expertise they have with what their audiences actually can understand and process.
That’s not easy. And note, this is also something that machines can’t do so well. Machines can sift through lots of data and examples quickly, but the nuances of how you put that together creatively for someone else – because you understand how that individual thinks, feels, etc. –will likely elude AI for the near-term.
The bottom line: Marketing isn’t just understanding a particular sector or having a specialty. It’s really about understanding people at its core. The better you are at that, with all kinds of different people, the better you’ll do.
Conclusion
The truth is, we probably all need to pull a little bit more light from what can be a pretty dark world at the moment. Not just for ourselves but for others too. As always, if you need help, that’s why we at Marketing Nice Guys are here. Contact us anytime for a free consultation.
