I’m a word geek. (There, I said it.) There are a lot of cooler things that I could label myself: accomplished triathlete, fierce saxophone player, or fashion model. But I am none of those. I am a word geek, and proud of it! Language is cool, powerful and interesting. But you know what I love even more than words? Metaphors – those fascinating word teams the spark meaning and understanding. I’m so interested in metaphors that I recently collected every single English language food idiom I could find for a school project; over 300 of them in fact. And I had a blast. “Geeky,” I know.
There are a lot of cool things about metaphors, including how powerful they are when it comes to bringing home meaning. Consider the following. Which is a stronger statement? “I was so frustrated.” Or “It was like trying to nail jelly to a wall.” If you tell me you are frustrated, I will empathize with you for sure. But if you get me picturing the folly, futility and full-out impossibility of trying to put a three-inch nail through a big glob of Welch’s and making it stick, well, now I am involved emotionally. That word picture brought much more depth to the idea you were trying to express. By envisioning the act of jelly nailing, I felt the frustration with a touch of humor. You’ve engaged me.
It turns out that there is science behind why metaphors work. Linguists, or fellow word geeks, study language and have shown that metaphors actually exercise multiple areas of the brain. Word idioms (which use common metaphors) literally deepen communication. I suspect this is why they have endured for hundreds of years, passed down from generation to generation. In my food idiom collection, there are only a few that have entered the English language in the last 25 years, but there are many that “jumped the pond” hundreds of years ago. (Did you know: “proposing a toast” is actually an old English custom of putting toast points on the sides of glasses of wine?)
When it comes to branding, we are metaphor-building on an even larger scale. It seems we brand everything in life, from kids in the school yard (What a nerd!) to the kind of guy or gal we’d like to marry (They are a good provider.) to the President of the United States (Insert your own metaphor here!). By understanding that branding is big-time metaphor building, three things become very clear:
- The brand has to fit with the metaphor to work
- The range of associations that can be conveyed are complicated
- If the visual sticks, it might be around for a very long time
Qualitative research is all about discovering which metaphors work, determining how to apply them, and implementing a clear process to bring them to life through a product, company or concept. It is also about testing ideas with both current and prospective consumers so that your words don’t fall flat.
The qualitative researchers at the Pert Group are experts at helping clients discover the right words and images for all kinds of things through custom market research. We really are the “cat’s pajamas” and “bee’s knees” of marketing research! How can we help you optimize the language you are using with your consumers? Let’s talk.
