Metaphors are more than just a play on words. Many, including
Steven Pinker, believe the way we link linguistic concepts together gives us a direct window into the workings of the mind. To see how widespread our use of metaphors is, just look at how many I've used in these opening lines. "A play on words", "link linguistic concepts", "direct window into the mind" - none of these can be taken literally. We don't physically link ideas or install a window in our skull, but you knew what I was talking about. My use of metaphors shared common mental ground with you, helping you visual the concepts I was trying to communicate.
Some linguists and psychologists believe metaphors are essential in helping humans understand complex concepts. We use terms that are usually used to describe physical force or location in more abstract ways: "He pushed his agenda on the group", "we have a tough month ahead of us" - we use metaphors like building blocks, constructing complex communication by borrowing from commonly understood terms. Pinker goes into this topic in some depth in his book "
The Stuff of Thought."
Harvard Professor
Gerald Zaltman spends a lot of time (there I go again - as if you could literally spend time..the metaphor mentally positions time for you as a limited resource) pondering metaphors. There, locked in our subconscious language (we don't deliberate about the metaphors we use, they come naturally with our use of language) can be found our true feelings towards things. Zaltman uses metaphors as a Rosetta stone to unlock our real feelings towards brands. As we talk about Coke, or Nike, or Apple, or Toyota, the language we use will inevitably include metaphors and the ones we choose will help researchers like Zaltman understand our true feelings towards those brands. Coke can be a tradition, a reward or a guilty pleasure. Nike can evoke status or perhaps pretention. Apple can inspire devotion or smack of creative elitism. Toyota can embody reliability or seem boring and pedestrian. The words we choose can reveal how we feel - as Pinker says, our language is the Stuff of Thought (even his title uses a vivid metaphor).
So, if this holds true, one has to be troubled by the paradigm of the marketer. We use words like "campaign" and "target" when we talk about reaching our market - words that come from a confrontational lexicon. Marketing has often been compared to a war. Even words like "segment" bring to mind a faceless, brainless mass that somehow had to be sliced up to make it manageable. And if you want to think of something truly disturbing, consider the literal meaning of "brand" - a physical searing of ownership. Brand comes from the Old Norse brandr - meaning to burn. It originated when manufacturers literally burned their mark onto their products. But i suspect today marketers have a different mental image of branding: searing their products into the brains of their prospects.
All this language speaks of the traditional view of marketing, the objective of which was to conquer the masses. But today, marketing has a different paradigm. We aim for partnerships and participatory relationships. Yet, for all the talk about the new age of marketing, we still seem stuck in the old way of thinking. Perhaps it's because we have to change our language first. If we still use words like "consumer"; a personality free devourer of products; or, as Jerry Michalski
referred to consumers - gullets with wallets and eyeballs - how can we develop any respect for our supposed "partners" in the new marketing?