← The Brainy Business | Understanding the Psychology of Why People Buy | Behavioral Economics
The Brainy Business | Understanding the Psychology of Why People Buy | Behavioral Economics
490. Metaphors and Brand Connection
00:46:22
In this episode of The Brainy Business podcast, Melina Palmer dives deep into the compelling world of metaphors in branding with Malcolm and Hannibal Brooks from Olson Zaltman. Discover how metaphors shape our understanding and influence consumer...
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- [00:00]
Melina Palmer
Welcome to episode 490 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy. Today's episode is all about the power of metaphors for brands. With Malcolm and Hannibal Brooks. Ready? Let's get started.
- [00:19]
You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Here's your host, Melina Palmer.
- [00:35]
Hello. Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business podcast Buckle Up. My friends. I am so excited to talk about metaphor with you today. And did I intentionally use the metaphor of buckle up there?
- [00:50]
Hannibal Brooks
You betcha.
- [00:52]
Melina Palmer
Trust me when I say that metaphor isn't just for lit majors and it isn't something you should forget about now that you're out of school. Did you know that we actually think in metaphor? And even though we don't realize it, every 20th to 25th word we say is in fact a metaphor. The problem, of course, is if you have mismatched metaphors, it can make it cognitively more difficult for someone to do business with and buy from you. And if you don't realize how often you're using metaphors, they can't possibly all be aligned, so of course they're going to be mixed up. To make it easier for people to buy what you're selling, it is worth investing in understanding how to properly use metaphors so they resonate with your ideal buyers. Since I've been having a lot of conversations about metaphors with my clients lately and referencing back to both this episode and my conversation with Sarah Thompson about cognitive semiotics in my work with them, it felt like a good time to refresh this conversation with Malcolm and Hannibal Brooks of Olson's Altman, which originally aired back in December of 20, where we discuss the power of metaphor, the Zaltman metaphor elicitation technique, or zmet, and how the Oz team has used metaphor to help their clients increase sales, brand loyalty, and more. Now, don't forget, links for my top related past episodes and books are waiting for you in the show notes for this episode, which are found within the app you're listening to and@the brainybusiness.com 490 all right, let's talk about metaphor. Malcolm Hannibal, welcome to the Brainy Business podcast.
- [02:32]
Malcolm Brooks
Thank you so much for having us on. We're excited to be here.
- [02:35]
Hannibal Brooks
Very, very excited.
- [02:36]
And so I feel like the. I don't know if it's like elephant in the room or whatnot. So for people to know that are just listening, that your voices sound very similar. For those who saw the imagery, it's not a, you know, mirror image. We have twins who work together and whatnot. So tell a little bit about your background and how you both kind of ended up in the same space, being as, you know, two completely different people. But yeah, tell about you.
- [03:05]
Well, I don't know if I should start all the way from the moment of our birth, but let's just say from an academic perspective, our paths have always been fairly closely linked. So our undergraduate degrees are in food science and technology. And I think that's actually what started to foster the interest for both Hannibal and myself in market research.
- [03:27]
Malcolm Brooks
Yeah, so food science is all about understanding the chemical, physical, the biological properties of food. So we always figured we're going to go into something R and D related and sort of be the next Willy Wonkas. But I think the real lesson we learned is that food is really a matter of perception. And so a lot of our experiments and labs and research we did were about people's perception of an end product, not just its safety, whatever. After that, we. After graduating with our degrees in food science, we both went to a master's program focused on marketing management and consumer psychology. Because we realized that that was the side that fascinated us. The science, but also the perceptual side. And Olson Zalman's been a great home for us to grow that ability and test in a lot of different spaces.
- [04:14]
Hannibal Brooks
So did one of you get a job at Olson Saltman first and have been there for a while, and then the other one came on. Were you a package deal? How did that all kind of work out?
- [04:23]
I would say if you can think of the Little Debbie snack, I don't know if it's still currently being sold. Banana twins. It actually wasn't a package deal like that. So I was working in New York at an artificial intelligence and hiring company. And Hannibal kept sending me emails saying, here's a really cool project I'm working on with these really cool brands that I was familiar with and love and saying, I'm traveling all over and here's the nature of my work, which was super exciting. So eventually I was won over and decided to apply. So I am about eight months late to the party, but still the most exciting guest there.
- [05:01]
Malcolm Brooks
Yeah, less banana twins. More like oatmeal cream pies in a hot car, if that. You know, maybe it's not the most visually exciting, but that's the story of things that. That come together.
- [05:12]
Hannibal Brooks
So I know I have never heard of banana twins, but I am going to have to go check it out. Now. That's an interesting name. I guess I was thinking of the, like, don't the Swiss rolls come two in a pack too?
- [05:26]
Malcolm Brooks
They do, yeah.
- [05:27]
Hannibal Brooks
See, that's what I was thinking you were gonna say. And then you said, banana twins. Like, what the heck is that of this treat? So I will have to. If maybe if I had a degree in food science, I would have been familiar, but I guess not.
- [05:40]
Malcolm Brooks
We're big fans of packaged foods. You can tell.
- [05:42]
Hannibal Brooks
Yeah. Awesome. So we've heard a little bit about you and your background, and you were talking a little bit about how, you know, you were swayed to come over to work there. You know, Malcolm hearing about the cool stuff Hannibal was working on. So can you tell a little bit about, you know, what you even do at Olson Zaltman and what makes the work that you do different and unique?
- [06:07]
Malcolm Brooks
Yeah, so what we do at Olson Zaltman is research that's focused on understanding the unconscious, but it's really through the lens of metaphor. So our process is focused on using imagery and verbal metaphors to understand emotions. And I know your listeners are probably intimately acquainted with this system one and system two thinking and the idea that emotions are ultimately what drive our decisions. So if I, for instance, if I ask you to think about a whale, you're probably not going to read me off a paragraph about a cetacean mammal and the articulation of its vertebrae and all those other things. You'll imagine an image of a whale and you'll start telling me about that. And so what we are, through our process at Oz came to understand is that we think in images, not in words. And the metaphors that we use, metaphors are kind of our way of describing the world, describing language, and describing our thoughts and feelings in ways that lead to emotion. So that's what our process is all about. And I don't know if you've had a chance to sort of look at the background or the founding of the company, but that's sort of where the. This, this whole idea sort of came to bear.
- [07:16]
Hannibal Brooks
Yeah, there's a really fascinating backstory to where the company itself originated. So there's these two, and I'm not saying this myself, this is the opinion of the academic community from which they come. But Dr. Jerry Saltman and Dr. Jerry Olson are really two well regarded gentlemen in the market research academic space. But where Olson Zaltman got its start was when Dr. Zaltman was on a trip to Nepal doing some work for Eastman Kodak. He distributed a bunch of cameras to people in the marketplace who had never used cameras before and asked him to take some pictures, saying, you know, you get to keep these later, but I just like to look at them and hear a little bit about, you know, what they mean to you. And an interesting thing that he observed was that in all of these photos, nobody ever showed the feet of the people that they were taking pictures of. And so the question just became, why is this? What is this? Just because they've never used a camera before, and is that playing a role? But it turns out that there was a symbolic purpose, that showing bare feet on adults or showing shoes that are not in perfect condition was a indicator of one's social or economic status. So it became about the kind of story they wanted to tell. So a picture can represent so much more than what it might appear to on the surface. So using psychological techniques like laddering and the birth really, of the Zaltman metaphor elicitation technique is kind of founded in that principle.
- [08:51]
Right. Which is the zmet, which I'm guessing is how we will talk about it from, from here on to not have.
- [08:57]
Melina Palmer
To say the whole.
- [08:58]
Malcolm Brooks
Yes, it is a very helpful shorthand.
- [09:01]
Hannibal Brooks
You can say it every time. I mean, it's formally trademarked, so we can, you know, spell out the whole thing, but that'll probably take up half the episode.
- [09:08]
Melina Palmer
Right?
- [09:09]
Hannibal Brooks
Yeah, we'll.
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Melina Palmer
We'll.
- [09:10]
Hannibal Brooks
We'll cut it down for. For those purposes. So I remember from our first conversation, which it's been months and months and months now, but since we first connected. But you were talking a little bit about metaphor. And I think in general, people don't realize how much we use metaphors in. Basically everything we ever say has some sort of a metaphor tied to it. Maybe not quite that extreme, but pretty close, right?
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Malcolm Brooks
That's right. And the metaphors really affect the way we perceive the world around us. Like, if you're sick, people don't say.
- [09:47]
Hannibal Brooks
I've been infected with X disease.
- [09:49]
Malcolm Brooks
What do they tell you? I'm under the weather. So what does it mean to be under the weather? Being under the weather is something that you can't control. So when people talk about being sick, they often use metaphors and ideas about being out of control. So. Or maybe before you. If you're facing a challenging financial situation, you feel like you're drowning in debt, and that's because drowning, again, it's actually crazy how many metaphors we use when it comes to finances that are water related. It's because it's something that you can be on top of or you can sink beneath. But a lot of it is about being active in something that you can't fully control. So we think about accounts or things being frozen or cash being liquid or not. So really the terms we use, even though they might vary across languages, there are these deep universal metaphors that persist across all areas of our experience. And so that's part of the power of the technique.
- [10:45]
Hannibal Brooks
So with that using, you have the financial example there that you gave a couple where we would even think, well, liquid, that's not a metaphor, that's just what it's called. But it's built on, if we go back and deeper, it's based on a concept that we're able to understand what it means to be a liquid versus a solid and things. But the cache itself isn't actually liquid.
- [11:14]
Malcolm Brooks
That's right.
- [11:15]
Hannibal Brooks
Part of that, when we think about these universal deep metaphors, part of the thing that makes them universal based on, which is kind of the foundation of our research, is that a lot of them originate in the experiences we have in life that become. That exist before we can even verbalize. So something like balance, like if you're balancing a checkbook or you feel like your life is in or out of balance, we think that can actually come from the experience of something like learning how to walk. So the way in which learning kind of happens generally we think of as there's these physical sensations and things that you can experience. And a lot of the way we learn more advanced concepts is by analogy to much more simple and instinctual things.
- [12:01]
So then are there kind of these like root metaphors for all the metaphors that we're trying to kind of get back to? Or there's like a core set of main ones that you're looking for when you're doing work that matter more than others. You know, kind of how does that work? Because it feels like there's an endless array of metaphors available. So there must be some that are more valuable than others.
- [12:25]
Malcolm Brooks
That's right. So our work often revolves around uncovering what the linkage of all the surface metaphors people use is to with what are essentially 16 deep metaphors that define our experience. So an example of one of those is something like a container. So someone may talk about their car as a type of container. So anytime someone's talking about something protecting them or enclosing them, there can be good containers, like being in a car or something while you're on the road where bad containers like a challenging. Let's say we're interviewing people in a certain profession and all of them describe some of the rules as making them feel trapped or confined or constrained. They may feel like I'm tied down to my desk in part of this job or something along those lines, for instance.
- [13:12]
Hannibal Brooks
Right.
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Malcolm Brooks
So lots of metaphors that revolve around that. But the key metaphor for all of those would be the fact that they feel like they're contained. So our goal would be to get to that deep metaphor and figure out, is this something as a brand or as a company you want to lean into or leverage, or is it something that you want to kind of change? Because the deep metaphor that's at the core affects the emotion people have about it.
- [13:35]
Hannibal Brooks
And so are there certain industries where, like you were talking about in financial services, there's a lot that has to do with water. And I don't know if water is one of the, like, what, how it falls in with the 16 or if it's, you know, something else there. But say where you always see X in this type of industry and this is a way that you can diversify or, you know, kind of. How does that work?
- [14:01]
Malcolm Brooks
Yeah, well, I don't know.
- [14:03]
Hannibal Brooks
Yeah, there, there are absolutely some industries where we're always going to see the same kind of deep metaphors appear again and again. A lot of times, forms of entertainment, whether that be an experience like a vacation or me visiting an amusement park instead of being about the experience that you have there, a lot of times it's about connection. So connecting to the people you're there with, forging these more intimate bonds with the people who you might be traveling with. So that's the kind of industry you.
- [14:34]
Malcolm Brooks
Might see with leisure.
- [14:36]
Hannibal Brooks
Oftentimes connection manifest. If we think about something like your.
- [14:40]
Malcolm Brooks
Finances, technology, a device using on your own, oftentimes those might be around control because you, you want to make sure that you're performing at the, the highest level or that you have a grasp of things or an understanding of them. So. And sometimes different groups of consumers, and this is what a lot of our work can be helpful in understanding, too. Different groups of consumers might have different metaphor or understandings of a product or a service, and that has big impacts. Like, for instance, when it comes to clothing brands, rental clothing brands like Rent the Runway, or you're probably familiar with like a bunch of them, you probably noticed why are there a lot of clothing brands and clothing rental and swap brands that are targeted towards women, but very Few for men or the few that have launched for men have been unsuccessful. And that's because when it comes to clothing, what we found in sort of the deep metaphor that's at play is for women, clothing is about a form of self expression and freedom. And so it's not necessarily about ownership, it's about being able to express yourself. So obviously you'd want to have that transformation. How are you feeling? What do I want to feel or present myself as on this day? Whereas for men, clothing is often about a form of control. So ownership, expensive assets like watches or suits or your unique style, it's more about control. So it's. If you're wondering what, what's the reason why clothing exchanges for men are existing, it's because they're metaphors about wanting to control things versus wanting to transform themselves in a regular basis. So if you can figure out the deep metaphor, you can figure out emotional needs that are, aren't being met.
- [16:20]
Hannibal Brooks
As a rent the Runway, longtime member subscriber, whatever you would call it, I'm a big fan. And that's like, for me is like I want the statement piece that's, you know, the bright red dress or something with a big pattern on it. But then I don't want to have to buy that thing and then wear it everywhere where it's like, oh, Molina's wearing that shirt again. Right. Where I do a lot of presentations, obviously. Well, in normal times I'm doing a lot of presentations on stages and things that are on video. And you don't want to be wearing the same thing every time. But I also don't want to go fully the other way to like the Steve Jobs.
- [16:57]
Melina Palmer
Right.
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Hannibal Brooks
And then actually wear the exact same thing every single time. So that's not a problem.
- [17:03]
Malcolm Brooks
Yeah.
- [17:04]
Hannibal Brooks
We will podcast listeners, Molina is dressed very fashionably, although you can't see her here. We'll call it the Steve Jobs, not the Elizabeth Holmes.
- [17:13]
I know. Right. That's the. Well, hers was a, was a knockoff anyway. Right. She was just trying to channel Steve Jobs, I think in that. But anyway, so let's look at that. I think that's a really great example of showing the, the difference and why it can matter. I know you have some case studies if you. What I really want is. So for someone who's listening from whatever company, from, you know, candy bars to phones to clothing to service based industries, financials, you know, whatever, they. It's not like they know. Well, I'm trying to uncover this hidden metaphor to determine if blah, blah, blah, and so they might feel like they don't have enough to, you know, call you or what do they need to know? What types of problems are you solving? So if a business was going to come to you and say, we're struggling with X, how do you solve that? With metaphor. If there's an example that you can show of a typical business problem that has been solved in this different way.
- [18:24]
Yeah. I'll tell you one great example. And it's probably one of the most common ones that we encounter. There's a legacy brand who's essentially defined the market, but now they're in a place where they say, we're losing our magic. You know, once we were seen as, you know, the best in this category, but now all of our claims, like Orange Juice, for example, is one where you could be a pioneer by saying, we're fresh squeezed, we're natural, we're 100% pure. But now everyone is saying that, so why would you trust us? Why would you buy from us in particular? Or there's a new innovation so you can say from a product perspective, everything looks like it should be performing well, but how do we position this in a way where it actually gets adopted? What's going to appeal to the type of consumer we want to reach? And so those are the kind of questions we answer.
- [19:13]
Malcolm Brooks
Yeah. So, Malcolm, you want to tell them about the case we worked on for Tropicana? Yeah.
- [19:19]
Hannibal Brooks
So this was a really cool one from a few years ago. It was for Tropicana, based out of Canada. And it's funny, I guess I alluded to that earlier with the example I gave. But sales in the category Orange Juice on the whole had been slipping by double digits for the past couple of years. And as I said, you know, at a certain point the category leader and everybody starts to talk about the product in the same way. Pure, natural, 100% fresh. And it's very easy to lose market share when people can say, these are all the same. I'm just going to go based on price. So the kind of work we do and when we use something like Z Med, we want to understand with your particular consumers, are they getting something out of your product and out of your brand that other juice consumers are not? So we had them bring in images and we can compare consumers of the overall category to the particular buyers of one brand. And once we did the interviews and looked at the pictures, a very different story started to emerge. Instead of being about getting something that's natural and pure, consumers of Tropicana were saying We, I view this as zesty zingy. It's adding a spark of brightness to my day. It's essentially adding light to my life. And so basically what we were able to get out of that is every other orange juice is like a healthy start. Yours is like a glass of sunshine. And so once we have something like that identified, a big part of what our outputs include. Our. Here's strategic positioning you can use based on the assets that consumers specifically mention in the associations you have. And so that launched this, that was the ground for a campaign that was built around this glass of sunshine idea. And so it used the Tropicana orange with the straw in a split screen with actual sunshine, people doing fun activities out in nature. And basically that led to a 14% growth in market share because there's something unique that you can capture for your brand.
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Yeah. And so to talk a little bit about the process, again, just to summarize for people, is essentially. So I'm with Tropicana and I say, hey, we're, we're having a decline in market share. We need help. How do we differentiate?
- [21:40]
Melina Palmer
Right.
- [21:40]
Hannibal Brooks
That's the type of thing that they're saying, we need a boost, something needs to happen, help us. And so then you all get some people, consumers to come in to be part of this Z met process, of which some are just overall just like orange juice drinkers in general versus those who are like, you know, Tropicana. Purists will say, like, love Tropicana. And then you have them all bringing imagery with them. So for anyone who's done, you know, the visual maps and things to where, you know, you cut out pictures from magazines and things. So you would say, I want you to think about Tropicana or just think about orange juice. Cut out these images of what it means to you, bring those in, and then you're asking them questions about why they picked a particular picture. What does this mean? And you do an interview which helped you to determine the difference. Is that sort of getting to the point of it?
- [22:39]
Malcolm Brooks
You are, you are 100% right?
- [22:42]
Hannibal Brooks
Yes.
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Malcolm Brooks
And natural.
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Hannibal Brooks
Yeah, I'm the orange juice of, of questions, I guess. So with that, then. So Tropicana didn't have to really know anything other than the problem they had. Right. And then. And you don't need to necessarily have a hypothesis going in of what the differences are, because you're going to have people generate that with pictures. You basically just need to know, is it always going to be a specific brand against the entire market or is that where there's maybe a differentiator of who you recruit for the studies?
- [23:19]
Malcolm Brooks
Sometimes we deal with brands that are being evaluated against the market or a general category. We also have tools that are designed to assess more specific areas. Like we do work on the messaging and the emotions that are elicited from concepts or advertising that's in development. So we also use implicit association testing and ZMET techniques sort of based around those as well. So it's not always category specific and.
- [23:46]
Hannibal Brooks
Sometimes these are not the most common cases. But there are brands who are thinking about what if you did a Z med just on the idea of what does fun mean to people. And we've done some as abstract as that. And that can help inspire some really creative out of the box stuff that's just about understanding a category like transportation, just generally. And that can help brands find their position.
- [24:12]
Malcolm Brooks
Right? Like let's say you're. Let's say you're. You're a member of city government and. Or let's say you're. That you're a car maker, transportation maker. And you want to understand how do people in a certain income bracket or geographic segment or some area think about transportation? Because we don't know do we want to build a train, we want to create cars, we want to create scooters, whatever it is. Maybe you'll find there's one group, maybe 80% of the market, they think about their vehicle or transportation. It's like a teleporter. I just want to get from one place to the other area as quickly as possible. And the more seamless and tech forward it is, the better. But maybe there's another group that thinks about travel as sort of this experience. So they bring in images of friends or family or music or a person relaxing. And they really want that experience to be something they enjoy and there's something about that process they enjoy. So maybe then it kind of allows your brand to think and answer questions. Are we going to build a monorail that has music built in and interactive screens or. Or are we going to have a fleet of some kind that takes people from point to point that's more business and professionally oriented, so it can help answer a lot of questions you might not even know you have as a consumer insights manager or advertiser, whatever your approach is.
- [25:30]
Hannibal Brooks
Okay. And so if we want to. I want to jump to a totally different example of one of the case studies and I think it had a really specific. So it was one about Harvard and to. In working on getting donations and the way that Harvard was presented or framed made a difference in how much people were willing to donate and how they felt about it. Things like that, and something that maybe seems like should be something that's going to resonate the most with people who went to Harvard and how they must think about themselves was maybe the one that didn't do as well. Can you share a little bit about what was found in that study?
- [26:10]
Malcolm Brooks
I can. So Harvard brought in Oz to do some research to understand how to generate more donations from alumni, because there was one group of alumni that was very generous and another group that was less generous. You can kind of think about this as the super fans versus the sort of obligatory fans. And so they wanted to understand what's the difference between these groups with their metaphorical framing. And so what they found is that the most generous donors brought in imagery and used metaphors that. That basically showed Harvard in donating almost as. As being part of this religion. It was this important cause they were contributing to that they got this sense of community from. And so in its communications, they felt like, I'm part of this cause with other people and it's something important. Whereas people who were less generous donors, they saw Harvard almost as this form of royalty. And so donation was almost like this tax or a bribe that they were paying to. To be a member of this group. So almost a country club kind of aesthetic. So the problem is messaging that talked about how prestigious and powerful and internationally renowned Harvard was actually served to just make them feel more small and. And subservient and kind of dislike their donation, which. That's a surefire way for people to give less and less and eventually break habits. So they realized they could reframe their messaging. So instead of saying, and this kind of fits that idea we talked about earlier of learning from your loyalists and using that to help own new white space or convert people who are kind of on the fence. So instead of saying Harvard's this internationally prominent institution, they emphasize that community and connection message by saying, Harvard has international influence. And through your gift, that means you can make a global impact. So it has this. All this power. But that doesn't mean you should be humbled and, you know, bowing down to it. It means this is power that can work for you and make you part of a bigger movement.
- [28:06]
Hannibal Brooks
It makes me think a lot of. So I have had the honor and joy of having Bob Cialdini on the show, and we were talking about his new version of influence and where it includes unity as the seventh principle of persuasion. And that, you know, one of us, you're part of this bigger collective and helping to trigger that unity piece, I think it sounds like, was really valuable for that Harvard cause. And I think a lot of people, your school is a lot like a religion, depending on, you know, where you're at. Sports teams, you know, have a lot of that as well. We were talking about Ted Lasso before we jumped into actually recording and knowing, of course, for the international football clubs. They're definitely very much like a religion in that space. And so do you think that that is a lesson that may be generalizable for schools, or do you find that it's very different from one? If you were going to work with another university, let's say, would you go in thinking that that unity thing is probably going to be the same as what Harvard saw, or could it be something completely different for a different school?
- [29:25]
Malcolm Brooks
Well, first off, to say, go Greyhounds as my Ted Lasso plug there.
- [29:31]
Hannibal Brooks
But I think what we find is there absolutely are core principles that we stumble across time and again. Like that concept of unity and making people feel like they're part of a bigger cause.
- [29:42]
Malcolm Brooks
Absolutely could be a huge part of it.
- [29:44]
Hannibal Brooks
But where we'll probably see the variance across schools is do we feature their mascot or do we show students who are just like you? Is this an aspirational type of thing where it's about giving to the next generation, or do you want a certificate that shows how much you gave? So there really. I think there is a lot of variability that kind of sits at the individual institution level, but core messages we absolutely do find.
- [30:12]
So that would be thinking of. So teaching for Texas A and M University. And we've got. So I went to the University of Washington for my undergrad and, you know, there's some rivalry in the PAC12, but nothing like when. So when I announced that I like, hey, I'm going to be teaching at Texas A and M and I'm so excited on LinkedIn, within, like 10 minutes, I had so many people out of the woodwork commenting. They were like, hook them horns and all these, you know, I was like, no, no. You know, okay, I guess Giga Maggies, right? I've got to be part of this now because there's this huge. Just that religion is really there. So like you're saying, though, is it a mascot versus, you know, you would ask then somebody to say, when you think of what it means to be an Aggie or being part, you know, alum of Texas A and M, what does the university mean? To you bring that imagery of what it means to be someone who went here. And that's how you would help to figure out whether it's you go on the mascot or a slogan or a color or the like people like you, like you said that that's how you would find some of that.
- [31:25]
Malcolm Brooks
That's right. Those deep one on one guided conversations will help us unpack that. And so we actually did some work with a university to help understand they were kind of struggling with student recruitment. So they have students start to apply and then not complete the process. So we wanted to understand what, what are these mindsets that are, that different students that are applying have. And we found there really were four different mindsets. So one group was saw college and the college process as something where they would, I mean you could kind of think about it almost like this quadrant model, but basically there is this locus of control as one dimension. And then some saw it as learning, some saw it as this kind of this training. So one group saw it as like this mission they were on. And so when college is a mission, what do you have to do to complete a mission? You have to be focused, you can't be distracted. The college has to have the courses you need to accomplish whatever it is you want to do in life. And so the main emotion that they need to have from their university is this sense of competence. So one group, you're going to want to show them that you have a streamlined path to help them succeed. Another group kind of saw college and this is what you see in a lot of college advertising as this kind of exploration where they can grow and learn. And maybe they don't know which pathway they want to go on. They have confidence they're going to find their way so that what they ultimately want to see from university advertising is a sense of freedom. So for the groups that have this internal lobes of control, I need to be disciplined or I need to find my path. You're going to want to show colleges something you can already see. There is a little bit of a challenge. Do you want to make it look more free form or do you want to make it seem like things are regimented? But those were both groups that were likely to engage in the process. And then there was this other side where people saw it as like this high wire act to this forced march. And it was challenging. And those are the groups that are most likely not to continue. So what they want to see is like hope or they want to see security or reassurance. So you can see four different messages at play there. And that's when, again, you're going to want to do the segmenting, find a message that can ultimately bring all those groups together. And that that's, again, we don't just look at what people think about the brand, but you want to understand your brand's core assets and what fits with the mindsets people have around it as well.
- [33:40]
Hannibal Brooks
In that case, is it, like you said, you want to try to find something that's going to go across those segments and resonate for all four. But some of those seemed very contrasting views. And, you know, are you able to find that actually, you know, these aren't the best students for you? Like, I guess in the Harvard example, it was like, these are the people that don't actually donate. So we want to see what they're hearing and saying that's bad and what's good over here. And so sometimes you might be finding that it's like, you know, this is a whole segment you don't have to worry about. And don't use any of these terms because it's going to be pulling in the wrong type of person who's just going to waste a bunch of time and not actually end up coming to your school. Whereas if you look at this type of messaging, it's more likely to attract this person who is going to be more likely to come to school and stay or, you know, whatever that happens to be.
- [34:31]
That really is the kind of thing we unearth, and we've talked about what it is that our clients bring to the table. A lot of times there's some segmentation work that's already been done just to identify who it is that you want to talk to. And we can help decide between which of two paths to take. And if there's current messaging that they want to test, we can basically make the determination, this is your current message, this who it is going to appeal to. This is who it may potentially turn off. So what we really do is oftentimes clarify what each of the two paths are.
- [35:06]
Malcolm Brooks
And sometimes, depending on your budget or your strategy, the great thing about marketing today is you can run with two different messages to appeal to two different groups if they're in different places, and there are other factors in their previous behavior that can help you understand which of these two categories are they most likely to fall into and how can I reach and understand them in their time of need.
- [35:28]
Hannibal Brooks
Right. And being able to target, especially with online advertising. Right. We're able to be really specific on someone who is like this or who has said they like this. So who's in this geographic area or, you know, whatever. You're able to then understand how you target these people here and these people here. And then in your overarching message, maybe have something like this. And whatever you do, don't say this because it's attracting the wrong type of person. That's right, yeah. The people, you know, that you're just listening. You couldn't see how I was using my hands. I feel like it made a really great. Really supplemented the discussion there. So if you were gonna grab. Talk about, like, one more, because we're gonna have to wrap up, which makes me sad, but it's okay. We have to do it. If you were going to take one other, like, study or finding maybe if there's something that was really surprising that you would have, you know, couldn't believe that this was the metaphor that came up or that, you know, really resonates with people. What. What would you share from that?
- [36:28]
I'll say this one, and it's probably one of the most fun cases to talk about. Some research we did for the Funeral Service foundation, and you would expect that death is an industry that can be pretty grim or humdrum, and people are concerned about, you know, making things seem austere and having their legacy respected. What we found is that from a sort of metaphorical framework, people would think about their funeral as almost like a performance, despite the fact that the star is actually, you know, dead, which obviously is a big change from what you would typically see in most performances. But what they found is, what I research uncovered is that baby boomers were shifting away from investing as much in their funerals because the traditional kind of service was something that was much more buttoned down. But how does it differ from a performance? It's not personalized, and the emotions that people feel are sadness. But people don't want to be remembered in a way that's sad. They don't want to be remembered for who they were. And sometimes they want this to be a really big, fun production that remembers the best of their life. So a lot of times when we get it got to the surface level metaphors, the conversation is more about how do people feel when they're on vacation or getting the kind of white glove service you would at the Ritz Carlton and doing the kind of things that make people feel like they're here at an event that is fun and totally communicates the. I'd say the more creative and enjoyable dimensions of the person, they're there to Remember I was.
- [38:11]
Couldn't help but have imagery of. I feel like everyone in the world at this point has seen Love actually which is just one of the best movies. And so potential spoiler for the, you know, three people that haven't seen it. But at the beginning where you know, Liam Neeson it's talking about how his. When his wife had died and that she like had been planning her own funeral because she had been sick and she wanted you know, song by the Bay City Rollers or whatever to be playing. And so many people. When you think about what you want for your own funeral is that people say, you know, I want to be fun. I don't want a bunch of people crying. I want people to be telling good stories. But yeah, then the messaging from someone who like the funeral services feels like if they were saying like woo, it's a party that it. There's some fine lines I think to be walking in that space. Right?
- [39:02]
Malcolm Brooks
Definitely. Yeah.
- [39:03]
Hannibal Brooks
And that's really the form that some of our recommendations took is one of the ways in which it translated was creating this online experience that's actually a lot more fun.
- [39:15]
Malcolm Brooks
Like a kind of cool and creative.
- [39:16]
Hannibal Brooks
Interface where you can enter what are the most fun things about me as a person? How do I want to be remembered? What's my favorite kind of celebration? And using those keys to get people to start thinking about basically thinking about their death while they're still alive by making it less scary.
- [39:33]
That's great. I actually have had clients over the years that do work in helping to talk about end of life decisions and finances and grief type, you know, overcoming all these things. And people don't like to talk about death. You know, the one thing, you know, one of the few things that they like to talk about even less is finances. Right. As the studies show. But being able to have those conversations in a way that is positive and fun to kind of break the ice is. And make it all easier to talk about I think is a really cool, cool idea. As a side kind of funny thing that has to do with this is in. When I was in high school choir, my choir director had told us multiple times. I don't know why this was a thing that he wanted everyone to know, but I never forgot is that he said at his funeral he wanted them to play Phantom of the Opera. And so it's like dun dun dun dun dun dun. That was his grandmother plan. That was. And so I will never forget that that is what he wanted. So weird thing but says something about your personality. If that's what you want, right?
- [40:47]
Malcolm Brooks
It's going to be an exciting funeral.
- [40:49]
Hannibal Brooks
Yeah, right. Fun stuff. So on that note, time to wrap up the episode. Feels like a weird spot to end, but, you know, here we are. We'll make it fun, as the recommendation was. So for everyone who is now just really intrigued and interested by all this metaphor stuff, which I'm sure everyone is, what is the best way for them to get in contact with you? Next steps, you know, where should they go to learn more?
- [41:18]
Malcolm Brooks
So if they want to learn more, they can Visit our website, olsonzaltman.com and I won't spell it out now, but you can visit us there. You can DM us on Twitter if you wantsonsaltman, and we'll be sure to respond there. And our doors are always open because we love to be able to help you in any way we can. But also our real work here is whether it's in interviews or as a company, it's understanding stories and connect with people. So just getting a chance to talk with you and understand you is really what we enjoy.
- [41:54]
Hannibal Brooks
Our doors are actually glass at the office, so even if they're not open, you'll be able to see us and what we're doing.
- [41:59]
Malcolm Brooks
So if you tap on it, we.
- [42:01]
Hannibal Brooks
Will definitely get to you quickly.
- [42:03]
There is that metaphorical openness in the transparency, I think, of the glass doors. I like it.
- [42:11]
Melina Palmer
Awesome.
- [42:12]
Hannibal Brooks
Well, we'll definitely have both the Twitter handle and the website in the show notes. And thank you so much again, Hannibal and Malcolm, for joining me today. It's been an enlightening conversation.
- [42:22]
Malcolm Brooks
Perfect. Thank you so much.
- [42:24]
Hannibal Brooks
And if you're Melina, you're so good at metaphor now, if you're ever looking for a role at Olson Zaltman, let us know.
- [42:30]
Nice. Thanks. I will.
- [42:34]
Melina Palmer
So what got your brain buzzing as you learned about metaphor elicitation today? For me, perhaps because of my history in financial services, I always go back to the money metaphors and realizing how often they're associated with water, frozen assets, liquid funds drowning in debt. It's so fascinating to see how these naturally show up and become commonplace and why knowing that is important. When you think about how to communicate with, say, potential customers if you're a bank or financial services firm or working in investments or real estate. I also really like the Harvard example and showing that what you think should resonate with people might not be driving the behavior you want, and that a simple reframe and realigned metaphor can make all the difference, whether it's more about being part of the global movement than prestige with Harvard alum, or about being the sunshine and light of your day with Tropicana, or about the way you talk about the experience of college or what fun means in transportation. Metaphors are all around you and you have so many opportunities to leverage them within your brand messaging. It's important to know too, that because we naturally use metaphor constantly in our communication, remember every 20th to 25th word. Whether you think about it or not, you are using metaphors to communicate for your brand. And if you aren't thinking about it, there's a very good chance you are mismatching them and making it confusing for your buyer. Unnecessarily committing to something and really owning it is better than being mixed because you will likely resonate with a certain group of buyers. Like with the college example of being on the journey versus on a mission. Those two things can be hard to communicate together and it might get muddled if you try. But if you really own one of them and have it show up throughout your communication, it will resonate with a group of people. And while I don't know what would work specifically for you and your brand without more context, if you aren't sure, you could of course do a test, which is great, and you could also look around and see what your competition is doing. If almost everyone in your industry uses the journey language, there's potentially an opportunity for you to be the mission message and resonate with a large segment of the market that feels underserved and unseen. Taking time to think about metaphor is going to be time well spent for your brand. So dig deep, be thoughtful and see what you can uncover. What are you going to use first? What are you going to try? What has worked for you or hasn't? Would love to hear about it. So please do come share it with us on social media. You'll find me as the brainy biz pretty much everywhere and as Melina Palmer on LinkedIn. There are of course links in the show notes to make it easy to connect with me, as well as the Olson Zaltman team, as well as links to my top related past episodes, books. More it's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and at the brainy business.com 490 and just like that, episode 490 on metaphor elicitation is done. Join me Friday for a brand new episode with Karen Eber, author of the Perfect Story. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me. And remember to be thoughtful.
- [46:04]
Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Melina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.