Let me explain it to you, said the nervous marketer. I know it may be tough for you to understand and me to explain. However, I will take an example out of your life experience, something that you are able to relate to and then may be you will be in a better position to appreciate my offering.
The agency guy stood up wanting to add his two bits to the client’s idea. By the way, knowing that different people in the target segment may not have the same reaction to the situation, just for the safety, we must layer it with humour.
The creative team, which was still grappling with the vague service description, decided to take the leap. It is just like standing in a lift …
It may not be wrong to presume such an act of strategic importance must be taking place across many conference rooms in the country, if the spate of analogy and metaphor-based communication in the industry is any indicator.
Analogy is a perfect device for conveying similarity between two domains sharing relational structure despite arbitrary degrees of differences. The audience is expected to structurally align its understanding and appreciate the suggested analogy. The creative teams facilitate the process by use of clever words and action.
Unfortunately, at times, the analogy becomes the pivot for the communication. There are no subtleties. There is a missing possible aha moment and even the smile is a result of audience questioning the wisdom of the creative team. Personally, I am not sure of the effectiveness of such communication. Sometimes they are so ‘A for apple’ that they miss the fun completely.
Sincerely and seriously, the use of analogy in advertising is far more rampant than one would want to believe. For me, falling back on analogies and metaphors represent a definitive lack of creative leap and understanding of the offer.
On the other hand, analogy is a strong device to provide the experience, redefine space and help adding visual framework to the concept. The more closure the analogy is to a common experience and stated in the social and cultural language, better it is in helping cognitive understanding and referencing.
There has always been a strong case for use of analogies. There is a comparison of a familiar experience and picture to the brand promise, thus speeding up the cognitive process. It takes advantage of the familiarity to transfer or transform the meaning, structure and the experience with the new domain.
Analogies traditionally have been one of the basic approaches in knowledge transfer and development through generations. It makes an early impression and helps the recipient to relate to the offering as on the hook of familiarity hangs the promise being shared.
Analogies and conceptual metaphors in many ways are part of most of the advertising and remain a powerful dominant device. In fact, our mind uses the analogy path when faced with a new stimulus. It compares it with earlier experiences and learning. It tries to collate and compartmentalize similar experiences for better understanding and referencing. Not surprising that quite a lot of advertising banks on this phenomenon and sees it as a logical extension to communication process.
Analogies and metaphors are definitively an easy and potent way for new product, brands, service that defies current categorisation. It helps them explain their offering by banking on other familiar experiences. I have nothing against it.
The problem arises when the example and experiences are over simplified to an extent that the audiences get irritated. They want the brand to get over with it. They most likely reject this over simplification challenging their intellect. I am sure the audience hate being deprived of the aha moment.
I am unsure about is the level of understanding that the creative teams, and the brand custodians have of the cognitive learning process and its impact. Trying to maximise message comprehension and not waste precious seconds on the analogy, the client wants to use an easily understood analogy in its most simplified format. The research in cognitive learning demonstrates that on one side, a slightly complex analogy produces stronger immediate learning and on the other side novelty of the analogy significantly enhances complexity in processing. So, there is a balance point where the impact must get maximized. I am not sure if there is a process with which the teams aim to hit this sweet spot, or it is still the biases and focus groups that are selecting analogies by rejecting the unfavorable ones.
Next time you are planning to go down the analogy route, my humble request is to give it a second thought. Do not over simplify. Do not treat your audiences as stupid people. Let them complete the loop and let them have their Aha moment.
You know understanding, and better use of analogy is like….
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Sanjeev Kotnala with 28 years of corporate experience is the founder of Intradia World; a Brand, Marketing & Management Advisory. His focus area includes Ideation and Innovation; he also conducts specialized workshops like IDEAHarvest, Liberate and InNoWait. For soft skill training, he follows SHIFT (Specific High-Intensity Frequent training), a process of continuous training with frequent shorter sessions. Email sanjeev@intradia.in tweet @s_kotnala web: www.intradia.in, www.sanjeevkotnala.com.
