A metaphor can short-cut a thousand words. For marketers, it’s a way of conveying brand essence – the core, intrinsic nature of a brand. It’s a tool for communicating complexity, distilling complex brand attributes into simple concepts. For brands, metaphors are powerful. They tap into our imagination, making brand messaging more relatable and memorable. But they are also risky.  

Metaphors carry meaning from one thing to another, it’s what makes them a powerful way to make imagery stick in the minds of consumers. Used effectively, they can create emotional connections and mental shortcuts. Amazon, for instance, is a brand named after the most voluminous river in the world. This conjures up a sense of vast abundance and it works because it aligns with the brand’s positioning – it’s a place to buy everything and anything.

Then there’s Nike, a brand named after the Greek Goddess of victory. The name is a metaphor for success and achievement, denoting feelings of athletic success to a primed audience of activewear fans. These brand names aren’t just symbolic, but powerful influences on consumer minds – as philosopher Ted Cohen says “there is a unique way in which the maker and the appreciator of a metaphor are drawn closer to one another. It’s like a game of subconscious negotiation.” With such influence at our fingertips, marketers must use metaphors with moral caution.  

Brands have long used metaphors to convey meaning, but this meaning can be interpreted in multiple ways. Take ‘The Cloud’, a metaphor communicating the complexity of online data storage. It implies our data is floating in the atmosphere, invisible to the eye and benignly amorphic. The reality of ‘The Cloud’, however, is much more complex – a vast mass of information physically stored in locations around the world. Ironically, it’s also a voracious consumer of energy and high producer of carbon emissions. Knowing this means the metaphor implied by ‘The Cloud’ could be interpreted in many ways. The soft imagery of the cloud could delay alertness to the cost to the planet – or it could draw our attention to it.  

In today’s competitive and cultural context, brands must be self-aware. A beauty brand using a metaphor that evokes nature, for instance, without putting a policy in place to protect the natural environment, risks being called out for greenwashing. This means integrity and alignment with brand essence are key. To execute a metaphor responsibility, brands must be clear about their purpose, beliefs and values.  

So how can brands best go about this? Consider these five suggestions for responsibility codes, a set of T&Cs for brands using metaphors:

• Live up to the story behind the metaphor.
• Know what possible misinterpretations could occur if the metaphor has a shadow side, then put a mitigation strategy in place.
• Make sure the metaphor doesn’t become the hero instead of your brand.
• Consider whether the metaphor is culturally specific. If it is, analyse the implications of this.  
• Determine whether the metaphor works on multiple levels – it might only be relevant to one.  

Ultimately, as consumers become increasingly aware of context, they are quick to point out when brands are off-code or offend. In this environment, brand metaphors have become more risky. So, to avoid misleading consumers, consider applying a set of T&Cs, guardrails, to brand metaphors.  

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