A MAP for effective advertising: the metaphoric advertising processing model

Abstract

Metaphors can trigger attention and surprise, elicit positive feelings when the non-obvious metaphoric meaning is deciphered, and accelerate the understanding of complex or abstract information due to figurative metaphoric associations. Hence, metaphors can satisfy important requirements of marketing communications. Accordingly, in recent decades, an increasing amount of marketing research has examined this concept. The present article provides an overview of this research on metaphors in the advertising literature, outlines the importance of metaphoric advertising for achieving key marketing aims, and identifies crucial research gaps in the current literature. Based on this overview, we integrate theoretical ideas and empirical findings from marketing and (consumer) psychology to develop the Metaphoric Advertising Processing Model (MAP), which offers new insights into the definition, processing, comprehension, and outcomes of metaphoric advertising. We conclude with concrete suggestions and recommendations for future research and describe the practical implications of the model.

Thinking outside the box: The influence of product metaphors on aesthetic judgements in design innovations.

“…The ability to trigger mental associations and create images (Dahl et al, 1999) in the viewers’ minds is one of the core strengths of metaphors (Dehay & Landwehr, 2019), making it a promising tool for product designers. Furthermore, a product metaphor associates a source with a target product, whereby the source and target share the same meanings or physical similarities (Cheng et al, 2019; Hekkert, & Cila, 2015; Van Rompay, 2008).…”

“…The aha moment is described as a surprising understanding of a stimulus or the sudden solving of a processing problem (Topolinski & Reber, 2010). The observer feels an emerging ease during or after problem-solving (Dehay & Landwehr, 2019). Particularly, the suddenness and surprise as well as the resulting ease after a solution has been found, are among the main characteristics of a moment of insight (Kounios & Beeman, 2014; Topolinski & Reber, 2010).…”

“…Based on a dual-process perspective on fluency effects, Graf and Landwehr (2015) introduced the pleasure-interest-model of aesthetic liking (PIA Model) and showed that pleasure-based and interest-based liking are two routes to aesthetic liking, each with different processing styles. Particularly, the model posits that aesthetic stimuli whose processing is more or less fluent than expected, trigger an experience of fluency discrepancy (Dehay & Landwehr, 2019). Feelings of interest arise as a result of successful disfluency reduction (Graf & Landwehr, 2015).…”

The persuasiveness of metaphor in advertising

“…This causes arousal, and the interpretation of the message elicits feelings of accomplishment once the message is decoded (Barthes, 1986), which in turn results in a positive attitude toward the ad. However, if consumers cannot find meaning in the metaphor, or if the metaphor is too complex and too hard to comprehend, it can lead to negative outcomes (Dehay & Landwehr, 2019). Therefore, it is important that marketers develop a creative copy that facilitates consumer comprehension of metaphors.…”

“…For example, the hot and spicy Kentucky fried chicken (KFC) campaign by Ogilvy and Mather Hong Kong demonstrates a creative way in which a metaphor is used to emphasize that chicken is fried with chili spices, delivering an explosion of fiery heat in every bite (Griner, 2018). Similarly, Tesla's advertisements show a car with blue sky and white clouds on its surface to demonstrate the benefit of zero‐emission electric cars (Dehay & Landwehr, 2019). An important characteristic of a metaphor is that it does not explicitly address the purpose of the advertising message (Lee et al, 2019), enticing consumers to employ more cognitive resources to process advertising information (McQuarrie & Mick, 1992).…”