#21: The Magic of Metaphors.
How to explain complicated things.
We’re back. And I really mean “We”.
During April, The Stitch Writer & Co doubled in size with copywriter extraordinaire, Immy Smith, coming into the stable. She’s been busy working on client copy and rustling up exciting interviews with folks in the creative industries.
Welcome, Immy.
In the first interview of our new series, we caught up with Clare Jay, a social media manager who focuses on organic growth and genuine engagement.
Clare helped us to understand what a healthy relationship with social might look like and the power of not worrying about your competitors.
And now, to the business of words.
This week I’m talking about metaphors, those little collections of words that transform a complicated concept into something you just get.
Not sure what I mean? Here’s one we wrote earlier for high-dose multivitamin brand, Tonic Health.
Why does it work?
Because a round-the-world ticket holds so much promise. Because you’d never want to waste it. Because it’s something that the target audience (millennials) can easily understand.
This metaphor suggests the consumer’s being taken for a bit of a fool, but nicely. When it comes to explaining something complicated, metaphors are a dream.
So how do you write one? Here are 3 ideas to help:
1. Turn boring facts into something you can imagine.
Let’s think about Tonic again. I could tell you that the product has seven times less sugar than some competitors.
Or…
I could say that if you compared the amount of sugar in a cupcake to a fresh, juicy apricot, Tonic would be the apricot.
2. MYOM (Make Your Own Metaphor).
There are loads of metaphors we use every day and sometimes, depending on the context, they work fine. But can you do better? Can you push it and do your own thing?
My all-time favourite metaphor comes from Ann Patchett’s wonderful novel ‘Commonwealth’ and it goes like this:
“Now here he was, as thin and as quiet as a knife.”
'Quiet' + 'thin' = weak, right? But 'knife' = deadly.
The words are at odds with each other and yet, to describe the quiet, unhinged character that’s Albie, they’re perfection itself. They send a shiver down my spine.
A creative metaphor reaches the emotions that a plain, old sentence can't touch.
3. Personalise it for your audience.
When we needed to communicate to the Tonic audience just how darned important the immune system is, we wrote this:
“Everyone needs an unsung hero. Your mum, the milkman, that bloke down the road. They’re ready to help but rarely thanked.
Your immune system is your unsung hero, doing its thing without even being noticed. Take care of the hero, and it takes care of you.”
It works because: This target audience isn’t above needing their mum to come and bail them out in a crisis. It’s personal to their situation. Just like #2, the juxtapostion of something very normal (the milkman) against something extraordinary (a hero) makes the metaphor all the stronger.
We’ve been working with Tonic to turn scientific language into a brand voice that sings to their target audience. Need help with yours?
3 great examples of metaphors…
“Our Tree Piper is carbon neutral… But before we balance the emissions, its footprint starts at 9.8 kg CO2e. Think of this measurement like a nutrition label for your closet.”
All Birds uses a measurement we’re already familiar with to help us get our heads around the sustainable greatness of their low-impact Tree Piper shoe.
“(Crime is a) wild beast preying on the city”
This fascinating article shows that when crime was depicted as a beast, the response to tackling it was punishment and enforcement. But when depicted as a virus, the suggestion to fixing crime was social reform. The metaphors had a literal effect on how people thought the problem should be solved.
“It’s more than just oil. It’s liquid engineering”
Castrol GTX elevates dirty car oil to the status of first-class car care with just two words.