Impact of Metaphors in Advertisements: An Explorative Study

Abstract

Metaphors are often used in advertisements to convey messages to the target customer. The study focuses on discovering the impact of simple, metaphorical (with pictures), and metaphorical (with both text and picture) adverts on consumers in terms of their ease of understanding, attractiveness, duration of evaluation, and persuasive power. The aim of the study is to find out if there is a significance difference of understanding, persuasion, evaluative time, and attractiveness of metaphorical and no metaphorical advertisement. The results of the study can be useful not only in the field of advertisements but also in any field that involves persuasion and communication skills. The methods used were laboratory experiment and self-report. A cohort of thirty people participated in the study comprised of ten male and ten female students, five male and five female faculty members. The study suggests that metaphors adverts have better attractiveness and persuasive power as compared to simple advertisements.