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Indirect persuasion in advertising: How consumers process metaphors presented in pictures and words
Journal of Advertising
Abstract and Figures
Indirect persuasion attempts are common in magazine advertisements. Although the use of an indirect claim presumably offers some advantage to an advertiser, as yet, little is known about how consumers process different types of indirect claims. We develop the proposition that when consumers are presented with an indirect metaphorical claim, they become more receptive to multiple positive inferences about the advertised brand. In addition, when the indirect metaphorical claim takes the form of a picture, consumers are more likely to spontaneously generate such positive inferences at the time of ad exposure. These ideas are supported in an experiment using response latency data. Because many of the inferences examined in this study could be considered misleading if claimed directly, the paper concludes with a discussion of the public policy implications of the findings.
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... This tactic has the potential to be extended to target straight customers as well, using indirect persuasion techniques such as metaphorical statements given in ad visuals. McQuarrie and Phillips (2005) feel that indirect assertions given through metaphor are beneficial because they make customers more susceptible to many favorable inferences about the brand being sold. ...
In this article, we explore the topic of LGBTQ+ representation in advertising texts. Our investigation offers a dual perspective. In the first part of the article, which is the most comprehensive one, we examine the key issues relevant to understanding the nature of contemporary advertising. We focus on the transformations that advertising communication is undergoing in a highly connected and information-driven world, which imposes new expectations, particularly regarding young audiences. We identify and analyze major trends and techniques that transform advertising communication into social and cultural texts. A defining aspect of contemporary advertising is inclusivity, and our article specifically highlights LGBTQ+ inclusive messaging. The second part of the article aims to identify the main characteristics of how LGBTQ+ individuals are represented in advertisements that have won the Grand Prix and Gold prizes in specific categories at the Cannes Lions Festival over a five-year period, from 2020 to 2024.
... Levitt's (1981) belief that metaphors make the sale recognises the special role of metaphors in persuasion and reasoning, enabled by their ambiguity, openness to multiple interpretations and ability to create surprise and other reactions, which should become prominent in the current accounts of metaphors. In both visual and linguistic formats, metaphors are widely recognised as powerful ways to raise awareness, influence and change behaviour through their emotional appeal (Peréz Sobrino et al., 2021;Gkiouzepas and Hogg, 2011;Van Mulken et al., 2014), to channel multiple messages and connotations (McQuarrie and Phillips, 2005;Lagerwerf et al., 2012) and to make messages more engaging and memorable by requiring indeterminacy functions at both cognitive and sociocultural levels. Although research has acknowledged metaphors' reliance on ambiguity for creative effect (Kadry, 2016;Toncar and Munch, 2001), the relationship between metaphorical novelty and strategic ambiguity remains underexplored in sustainability advertising. ...
This paper examines the ambiguity of novel metaphors in advertising messages and the ways
it can enhance audience engagement, analysing 25 metaphors from WRAP food waste
reduction campaigns. Drawing on van Leeuwen’s concept of “integrated design” and social
semiotic approaches to multimodal analysis, this study investigates how metaphorical
ambiguity is used to facilitate behavioral change through abductive reasoning. The analysis
reveals that strategic ambiguity functions not as a communicative barrier, but rather as a
semiotic resource that invites active meaning-making within specific sociocultural contexts.
The findings demonstrate that effective behavioral change campaigns benefit from metaphors
that transcend conventional associations through calculated semantic tension. This research
contributes to the existing literature on advertising metaphors and practical campaign design
in sustainability advertising discourse by showcasing how strategic ambiguity can enhance
campaign effectiveness through the integration of multimodal semiotic resources.
... It is based on the belief that illustrations in the form of cartoons, memes and other visuals are indeed powerful tools that can be used to push certain narratives and cause change in society. The use of non-verbal metaphor in persuasive discourse has been documented in a large number of scholarly publications which demonstrate that pictorial communication can contribute effectively to shaping minds, creating beliefs, ideologies and enjoining or pushing people to adopt certain behaviors (Ervas et al. 2021;McQuarrie & Phillips 2005;Se-Hoon Jeong, 2008). Illustrations are therefore seen not only as mere depictions of reality, but also as ways to persuade audiences. ...
This paper is part of a broader study of how separatist leaders from the English-speaking part of Cameroon resort to discourse in order to push for their main political goal, which is the formation of a separate state. These last few years, Cameroon politics has been characterized by an increase in secessionist sentiment amongst English-speaking citizens, thus yielding the so-called Anglophone crisis which has now turned into a full-blown conflict between armed separatists and the country’s military. The study presented here deals specifically with the use of multimodal metaphors to depict the plight of Anglophone Cameroonians and also engage them in the struggle for self-determination. Therefore, cartoons published on separatist social media pages were analyzed following approaches pertaining to cognitive linguistics and social semiotics ( Lakoff & Johnson, 1980 ; Van Leeuwen, 2005 ). This research has revealed that the cartoonist(s) resort(s) to various types of metaphor, including the journey metaphor, animal metaphors and personification.
Drawing on Relevance Theory, the paper sketches out a framework that accounts for inference-making in creative multimodal texts, taking advocacy campaign posters as its case study. The analysis shows that in each poster semiotic resources are employed to create a micro-narrative exemplifying actors affected by a sociopolitical problem, whose function is to create assumptions against which a higher-order intention is recognized. The text-internal relevance within the micro-narrative is optimized by combining verbal and visual elements to communicate multimodal explicatures and implicatures. The visual elements are employed to invoke non-propositional effects that activate perceptual mechanisms to maximize emotional attachment with the issue advocated for. These non-propositional effects communicated by visual connotation carriers are essential, rather than extra, elements, contributing to the understanding of the propositional meaning communicated at the text-external level. The analysis shows that an inferential approach to multimodality is indispensable to account for (non)propositional content across different modes.
Baseado na Linguística Cognitiva, este artigo analisa processos figurativos, predominantemente a metáfora, em contexto de reportagens jornalísticas atuais em português brasileiro. Tendo em vista os aportes teóricos da Metáfora Conceptual, de Lakoff e Johnson (2002 [1980]), e da noção de fictividade, de Talmy (2019 [2000]), o fundamento mais relevante tem a ver com a compreensão de Deignan (2010) sobre as metáforas avaliativas. De acordo com ela, há quatro maneiras para a metáfora promover uma avaliação: implicações geradas; cenários metafóricos evocados; domínios-fonte escolhidos; conotações exploradas. Do ponto de vista metodológico, mapearam-se usos de metáforas nos dois primeiros textos da série de reportagens Vaza Jato, lançada pelo The Intercept Brasil, para integrar uma análise de caráter qualitativo-interpretativo. Os resultados indicam que o discurso jornalístico utiliza criticamente metáforas avaliativas, bem como seus respectivos esquemas imagéticos e suas implicações, requisitando parcialmente as mesmas bases figurativas acionadas pelas fontes de informação, características as quais surgem dos dados vazados, sugerindo a perspectiva avaliativa dos jornalistas sobre essas mensagens. No contexto enunciativo das reportagens analisadas, a seleção dos domínios-fonte se revelou crucial para o caráter avaliativo das metáforas. Outro aspecto relevante é a apropriação, pelo discurso jornalístico, de metáforas avaliativas advindas das fontes de informação, para usá-las argumentativamente contra essas próprias fontes. Finalmente, em termos de produção textual, as reportagens recorrem aos mesmos processos figurativos e avaliativos para se obterem coesão e coerência por meio de metáfora.
Nas últimas décadas, houve uma proliferação de estudos relativos à metáfora e à metonímia, segundo a definição da Teoria da Metáfora Conceitual. Recentemente, uma crescente atenção tem vindo a ser dedicada às metáforas e metonímias multimodais e ao papel persuasivo que desempenham na publicidade comercial e social. Neste trabalho, analisamos os cartazes soviéticos antialcoolismo publicados durante a campanha de propaganda de Gorbačëv contra o consumo de bebidas alcoólicas (1985-1988). De modo particular, interessa-nos o papel central de um elemento pictórico, a garrafa, metonímia que se traduz como os conceitos de alcool ou alcoolismo. Nos cartazes anti-alcoolismo dos anos oitenta, a imagem metonímica da garrafa entra frequentemente em interação com outros processos metafóricos. Nosso estudo vai precisamente focalizar a interação entre as metonimias desencadeadas por meio do uso pictório e/ou verbal da garrafa e o processo de (des)personalização ocorrido nesses contextos específicos. Alguns cartazes apresentam a garrafa como personificação para transmitir a mensagem de que o alcool é prejudicial para a vida privada dos indivíduos, pois pode manifestar-se enquanto um substituto dos entes queridos e levar às ações que independem da vontade do sujeito. Outros cartazes mostram a pessoa alcoolizada representada enquanto uma garrafa, para demonstrar que o alcoolismo destrói características humanas. A interação entre a imagem metonímica da garrafa e os processos de (des)personificação desempenha um papel primordial nos cartazes antialcoolismo soviéticos e visa representar os efeitos negativos do abuso de álcool na vida privada e social dos indivíduos.
Purpose
This study aims to explore the attraction, influence and persuasive effect of advertising (with or without metaphor) across different types of hotels (luxury vs. budget hotels).
Design/methodology/approach
Two independent variables – namely, the hotel category (luxury versus budget) and the use of rhetorical figures (text with metaphors versus text without metaphors) – serve as the basis for the investigation. The research design is a 2 × 2 within-subjects construct based on eye-tracking methodology complemented by questionnaire-based data collection. Participants were engaged with hotel advertisements under four specific conditions, each reflecting a distinct combination of the two independent variables.
Findings
The findings reveal the augmented attention-grabbing prowess of advertisements that use metaphors compared to those that do not. Furthermore, the study findings reveal that the hotel category significantly influences the efficacy of advertising; advertisements promoting luxury hotels were found to stimulate superior impression recall, garner higher customer affinity and prompt a more potent intention to patronize the hotel. Finally, the study shows that neither congruent nor incongruent pairings of visual (budget or luxury hotel) and verbal elements (with or without metaphor) yield additional advertising benefits.
Practical implications
This research addresses the limited empirical guidance available for hotel operators at various levels regarding the design of advertisements incorporating rhetorical devices. It highlights the potential benefits of using figurative rhetoric, especially metaphors, in advertising for both budget and luxury hotels. The study reveals a notable correlation between hotel category, particularly luxury offerings, and customer attention, retention, preference and intention to visit. Furthermore, it encourages hotel operators, regardless of their hotel’s ranking, to incorporate metaphorical language into their advertising designs, underscoring the need for strategic integration in overall advertisement planning.
Originality/value
Using high-resolution online eye-tracking technology, this study innovatively examines the influence of hotel category and rhetorical devices on the effectiveness and attention-grabbing potential of advertisements. Through this approach, the study seeks to offer valuable managerial and advertising insights for those involved in hotel marketing.
Although pictures have been shown to enhance the impact of persuasive communications, little is known about the robustness of such effects. This study examines how involvement moderates the process by which pictures affect brand attitudes and purchase intentions. The results show that involvement's moderating role depends on whether pictures convey product-relevant information. Whereas the impact of affect-laden pictures devoid of product-relevant information declines as involvement increases, involvement exerts the opposite effect for product-relevant pictures. The results also demonstrate that the images evoked by pictures and thoughts about a picture's appropriateness play an important mediating role in the persuasion process underlying peripheral pictures.
The tactics and techniques of advertising are examined by a content analysis of 2,000 print ads drawn from the 10 largest selling magazines for each of the first eight decades of the 20th century. A decade-by-decade analysis is presented, identifying fads and trends in tactics and styles of print ads.
The purpose of this paper is to use literary theory to extend prior categorizations of message claims that are likely to result in deception by implication from the level of the individual claim to that of the advertisement's overall meaning. The paper will first summarize three literary forms that advertising has adapted—metonymy, irony, and absurdity—and discuss each in terms of how form and content interact to yield the whole verbal meaning of a text. These forms can be used to structure an ad so that the totality misleads the consumer by perverting meaning in three different ways. Metonymy can mislead by adding multiple meanings; irony, by hiding doubled meanings; and absurdism, by conveying subjectively ambiguous meanings. Advertising examples will be presented in the discussion. The paper will conclude with research suggestions for gaining greater understanding of how artistic creativity can be balanced with the public policy need to protect the consumer from deception by innuendo.
Results from Experiment 1 reveal that consumers highly involved in processing an advertisement are likely to make invalid inferences from incomplete-comparison claims at the time of processing and, hence, be deceived. Less involved consumers may be induced to complete such claims at the time of measurement, which makes it appear that they also were deceived by the advertisement. Experiment 2 then demonstrates that deception depends on the processing demands of the advertising claim. Only less involved consumers are deceived by inconspicuous-qualification claims, which require detailed processing of the advertisement for non-deception. The author discusses the implications of these findings for advertisers and public policy.
Two studies explored how and why the camera angle used to photograph products in ads may affect viewers’ product evaluations. The findings suggest that such camera angle effects are likely to emerge when viewers’ motivation to process ad information is either low or moderate rather than high. When processing motivation was low, evaluations were most favorable when the viewer seemed to be looking up at the product, least favorable when he or she looked down at the product, and moderate when the product was at eye level. However, when processing motivation was moderate, eye-level shots produced the most favorable evaluations. The authors suggest that the use of different processing heuristics may be responsible for these camera angle effects.
In two experiments, the authors manipulated the audience's level of involvement in processing an advertisement and whether the advertisement was open-ended (i.e., did not include an explicit conclusion) or closed-ended. Results of both experiments show the open-ended advertisement to be superior to the closed-ended one for an involved audience in terms of brand attitude, purchase intention, and choice, whereas only a small and statistically insignificant difference between the two types of advertisements is found for the uninvolved audience. Moreover, the second experiment shows that the choice advantage of the open-ended ad for the involved audience persisted when measured one week later.
Fishbein's attitude theory posits that beliefs are the only mediators of attitude formation and change. The validity of this proposition for consumers’ beliefs about product attributes and brand attitudes was exmained in the context of an advertising effects study. To manipulate product attribute beliefs and to create settings in which other mediation processes might occur, the authors exposed subjects to simple advertisements that contained either a verbal claim or visual information. Level of repetition also was varied. As expected, product attribute beliefs mediated attitude formation. However, another variable, termed attitude toward the advertisement, also mediated brand attitudes and purchase intentions. The authors discuss alternative explanations for the results and offer suggestions for future research.
Recent research has identified attitude toward the ad (AAd) as an important construct mediating the effects of advertising on brand attitude and purchase intention. To date, however, little attention has been directed toward explaining the origins of AAd. The authors present the latest version of a theory of AAd formation, report the results of an empirical test of a portion of that theory, and offer further refinements to the theory based on the observed results. Implications of the findings for advertising practice are discussed.
In two experiments, the authors manipulated the audience's level of involvement in processing an advertisement and whether the advertisement was open-ended (i.e., did not include an explicit conclusion) or closed-ended. Results of both experiments show the open-ended advertisement to be superior to the closed-ended one for an involved audience in terms of brand attitude, purchase intention, and choice, whereas only a small and statistically insignificant difference between the two types of advertisements is found for the uninvolved audience. Moreover, the second experiment shows that the choice advantage of the open-ended ad for the involved audience persisted when measured one week later.