Recently, we’ve seen concepts like hygge and fika becoming well known in British culture. They’re great examples of single words that capture an experience or feeling that you’d need a whole sentence to explain in another language.
I also came across the gorgeous Tagalog word gigil, which is the ‘irresistible urge to pinch or squeeze someone because they are loved’. And the Inuit word iktsuarpok, which is ‘the anticipation one feels when waiting for someone to arrive whereby we keep going outside to check if they are there’.
The length and complexity of these explanations shows why we often ‘adopt’ words like hygge from other countries – it’s simpler.
But it takes time and repetition for a word from another language to be understood in the blink of an eye. So it doesn’t always work for brand advertising, where the message needs to land quickly and easily.
We find that a great way of exploring the right language for comms is through metaphors. When consumers come up with their own metaphors for an experience, a frustration or a benefit, these can reveal ways of communicating deeply and directly, and can help brand teams with their thoughts and ideas.
One technique we use to access metaphors is Clean Language. Born from the world of psychological counselling, Clean Language involves asking questions by repeating and building on a person’s own words. This encourages them to describe a deeper, more embodied and subconscious level of experience. Metaphors emerge as a natural part of the way people describe their experiences and can help if they’re struggling to articulate their feelings.
These metaphors can help in a number of ways because they:
· capture people’s feelings and experiences in a new way
· refine our understanding of the insight
· are authentic and rooted in real life
· are often visually powerful
· can spark creative ideas
Some brands use metaphors well in their comms, verbally and visually. @Pamper’s ‘poonami’ springs to mind as a great example of creative language being used to convey an experience that all parents can relate to, as well as a great conduit to a meaningful benefit.
In the same way, we have worked on several well-known OTC medication brands where some of the metaphors people used in our research to describe their issue (pain, discomfort, and / or the emotions associated with them) and their ideal solution (what the remedy would do for them and how this would feel) were so strikingly evocative that they ended up in the advertising itself.
Part of the power of all of this lies in the fact that the metaphors often make the idea more concrete. This is particularly important given that more concrete language is 4 times more memorable than more abstract language, because we’re able to visualise it (Begg, 1972). All the more reason to take metaphors seriously and find ways to dig them out. To hear more about how we use Clean Language and other techniques to access metaphor to inspire creative comms, please email me on catherine@lucidpeople.com
Catherine is a Lucid Associate and our lead on digital methods. She is an insightful, sharp thinker who loves to help transform brands with fresh thinking. Catherine began her career in insight at TNS and Team Research Consultancy before moving into planning at Euro RSCG Wnek Gosper and strategy at retail consultancy 20/20. She then returned to insight, working independently and with Lucid, then as Insight Director at Brand Dynamics, before re-joining Lucid.