When we use metaphors (or similes), we compare one thing to another so we can understand or explain it better. We do this to explain it, to understand it or sometimes just to make our language more colourful.

Life’s but a shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more.

Here, the core of the metaphor is the equation ‘life=theatre’, with the secondary meaning ‘people=actors’. In these lines, Shakespeare is explicitly saying that our lives are as brief and futile as a play – a meaningless shadow rather than anything real. Implicitly, he’s also saying that we have little control over our destinies, like actors whose lines are written down for them. Once the parallel is drawn, a metaphor opens up a range of ways to think about something in a new way.

Metaphors in NLP

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) takes language seriously, acknowledging that it shapes the way we think. NLP practitioners pay close attention to the words people choose. By really listening to what people say, we can learn about the way they see themselves or the world.

To an NLP practitioner, metaphors are interesting because of their limits. They illuminate some truths while obscuring others; in NLP terminology, there are things they ‘allow’ and things they ‘disallow’.

For example, we might say that a trusted friend is ‘a rock’. Obviously, there are lots of unintended literal meanings: our friend probably isn’t thousands of years old, rough to the touch or permanently rooted to the spot. When we liken them to a rock, we’re saying that they’re solid and reliable.

However, they are human, so their moods and opinions change. Since rocks don’t change, our metaphor obscures this aspect of their personality, locking them into an idea of stolidity that may be limiting (for us, or for them). This highlights the importance of ‘stepping out’ of metaphors when they are no longer useful.

Liquid engineering

Over 35? This might take you back a bit (click to watch the advert)

A good example of a strong metaphor in copywriting is the slogan used for Castrol GTX in the 1980s: ‘liquid engineering’. In just two words, it transformed an everyday, almost commodity product into something essential and sophisticated.

Copywriting metaphors like this derive their power from two sources: imagery and emotion. In general, people find it easy to grasp concrete images, and harder to understand abstract concepts. Moreover, they respond more strongly when their hearts are appealed to, rather than just their minds. ‘Liquid engineering’ equates Castrol’s oil (an inanimate object) with attentive, skilful human engineers, suggesting that it provides a similar level of care, while appealing to the customer’s desire to care for their engine and safeguard their investment.

Leaky umbrella

Castrol’s metaphor was apposite, elegant and memorable – a brilliant piece of copywriting. But it’s very easy to get drawn into using a metaphor for its own sake, or pressing one into service that isn’t quite suited to the job at hand. The following is the text of a magazine advert currently being used by a leading UK insurer:

Would you buy an umbrella, if it didn’t keep you dry?
Neither would we. So why should you pay for an insurance policy that won’t keep you properly covered? Unlike 8 out of 10 standard home insurance policies we include cover for your belongings if they are accidentally damaged or lost – as standard.

The text is accompanied by a picture of an umbrella, highlighting one of the key benefits of metaphors in marketing – they give you a handy hook to hang your imagery on when none is otherwise available. (Services are often hard to depict – it’s even worse in B2B marketing.)

Although ‘insurance=umbrella’ seems promising as a metaphor (if unoriginal), here it actually muddies the meaning rather than clarifying it. Have you ever had, or bought, an umbrella that didn’t keep you dry? How would you know that an umbrella wouldn’t keep you dry, before you bought it?

The umbrella is an everyday item, but the situation described is artificial and not one that readers will immediately recognise from their lives. As a result, the metaphor won’t have the sensual, concrete force that drives emotional impact.

Stop clevering off

Instead of providing a useful stepping-stone between something familiar and a new concept, the headline metaphor in this example is adding a cognitive barrier between reader and benefit – and therefore putting obstacles in the way of a sale. The headline is literally a riddle, and if you ask your reader to solve riddles you run the risk of them simply walking away.

Since the core benefit is easy enough to understand for anyone who’s ever bought home insurance (which is almost everybody), a better headline might be:

With [Insurer], cover for damage and loss come as standard.

Or, for a bit more spice:

What’s extra for others is standard for us: damage and loss cover included with every home insurance policy.

Of course, you wouldn’t be able to include a nice picture of an umbrella, but you would have a headline that would actually generate interest.

It’s well known that headlines with benefits outpull those without. So if you’ve got a benefit that’s easy to communicate, it should always lead your copy. If you want to connect with readers, resist the tendency for what my granny used to call ‘clevering off’.

Making metaphors work

Here are a few pointers for making metaphors work in copywriting.

• Use sparingly. Only use metaphors when they’re needed: to clarify points that would otherwise be difficult to explain or understand, to communicate a benefit or to add emotional or persuasive impact. Don’t use them for their own sake. 
• Choose carefully. The right comparison can illuminate a key point like a ray of sunlight breaking through the clouds. But the wrong one can quickly lead you into deep water. Be sure your metaphor is appropriate.
• Dig deeper. Sometimes, metaphors have layers of meaning that you might not want. Consider what your metaphor really says about the product, service or company you’re promoting.
• Less is more. Metaphors are like tissues. At the moment you need them, they’re indispensable. But if you try to get too much use out of them, as I’m doing here, you’ll end up in a mess. In other words, most metaphors support just one or two strong points; after that, they should be dropped.
• Don’t mix it up. ‘Let’s run that idea up the flagpole and see if it holds water.’ ‘We weren’t on the same page because they were dancing to a different beat.’ Adding metaphors together doesn’t concentrate meaning; it dilutes it. Give your metaphors room to breathe, so your reader can absorb each one fully before you hit them with the next. If they’re too close, or if they overlap, the result is ludicrous. 

Whatever branding, design or marketing channels you use to market your business, it’s essential that your copywriting communicates benefits: the good things that your product or service does (or promises to do) for your customers.

The first and foremost benefit of a product or service is meeting a need. Don’t underestimate the power of stating this to a reader. It’s particularly important online, where people are impatiently searching and seeking to confirm that they’ve found the right thing. If your product solves a problem, make sure people know it.

Then we come to ‘hard’, concrete benefits. These usually boil down to one of three things: save time, save money or (for businesses) make money. They have tangible effects that can be measured – they’re bigger, faster or cheaper. A kettle that boils water faster than competing products offers this type of quantifiable benefit.

However, people are also interested in ‘softer’ emotional benefits such as convenience, fun, style, fashion or the sense of having made a sound buying choice. For example, when you buy jeans or trainers, you’re looking for more than the optimum cost-benefit ratio – you want to buy into a brand that feels cool and appropriate for your age and style.

Fred Perry offers customers benefits including product quality, cultural resonance and fashionability

‘Quality’ might appear in both lists, since its definition is so fluid. For example, it might apply to something as concrete as ‘build quality’ in engineering – the durability, tolerance and precision of the components used to make something. But in more subjective areas of judgement, such as graphic design, one person’s concept of ‘quality’ may be very far from another’s, and affected by a range of personal or cultural factors.

We might say, broadly, that ‘hard’ benefits are more important in business-to-business (B2B) marketing, while ‘soft’ benefits appeal to the consumer (B2C). But even if you’re marketing to a business, the buying decision will always be taken by a human. And that human has emotions. So if you know who they are (either as a specific individual, or in terms of their likely profile) you can appeal to those emotions. The need to feel that the right decision has been made is particularly strong in B2B buyers – hence the saying ‘no-one got fired for buying IBM’.

You may have heard of the marketing formula AIDA, which stands for ‘attention, interest, desire, action’. These are the four stages through which a piece of marketing should (supposedly) guide its audience en route to a sale. If we look at it again, we can see that benefits are behind every one. Simple, strong benefits in a headline or slogan attract attention, while interest is generated by adding more detail. Desire is aroused when benefits are made real in the reader’s mind, and action is elicited by giving a persuasive push to the promise of a benefit.

Whatever thought structure you use, the end result needs to be copywriting that speaks directly to your customers’ needs, desires and hopes by offering something of benefit to them. If it doesn’t, it won’t bring much benefit to you.

The other day I noticed that the cars used by BSM (a leading UK driving school) carry this slogan:

Learn to drive

That’s right – just those three words. It seems almost too simple to be true, but if we unpack it we can see that this little sentence accomplishes four very important functions:

• It clearly defines the product (driving tuition).
• It communicates a key benefit of the product (you’ll learn to drive).
• It sets out a strong call to action, commanding the reader to act (learn to drive!)
• Through its basic, generic phrasing, it confirms BSM’s market positioning – the market leader, default option or natural choice.

Notice how this slogan respects its readers. Nobly declining to spin or sugarcoat its message, it gives customers some credit as thinkers and choosers, setting out the stall and letting them decide. Its simple, solid language makes counterparts like ‘For the road ahead’ (AA’s corporate tagline) sound pretentious and patronising. (Most effective slogans are simple, but not all simple slogans are effective.)

That magisterial BSM slogan in full

But is it really copywriting? After all, it’s ‘just’ a simple, everyday phrase. There’s nothing really there – no technique, no clever choice of words, no sophisticated appeal to the emotions, no carefully judged tone of voice. Was it even deliberately created? Did, perhaps, the designer just insert it as a placeholder until the real slogan was created?

It doesn’t matter. Great ideas are where you find them. ‘Yesterday’ came to Paul McCartney in a dream. And if this phrase did come from a copywriter, it was an exceptionally intelligent, brave and independent one. Someone who wasn’t afraid to put forward the right solution – not the one that made them look clever, sophisticated or hardworking. For their part, BSM deserve praise for setting aside corporate pride and brand insecurity so they could communicate with customers in the most direct way possible.

Achieving this kind of simplicity isn’t simple – nor is it easy, quick or straightforward. Pablo Picasso said, ‘It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.’ Often, our first ideas are convoluted and confused as we try too hard to make something special, original or arresting. Then, over time and through many revisions, we discard what isn’t needed to arrive at the essential. When the answer comes, it can seem ridiculously simple. But that’s how we know it’s right.

Once political parties have been in opposition for a while, they inevitably start campaigning on a ‘change’ agenda, almost regardless of policy. It appeals to our instinct for balance. Things have gone too far; they must be brought back into equilibrium. In the last US election, this was exploited by Barack Obama with his ‘Change we need’ and ‘Change we can believe in’ slogans.

Obama and Bush both know how to exploit our instinct to balance things out

This instinct is a double-edged sword for marketers. On the downside, it can lead to losing business if your customer decides they want a change. During my stints at a contract publisher and a design agency, we often found that long-standing, apparently satisfied clients would suddenly switch to another supplier ‘for no reason’. Of course, there was a reason: they fancied something new and different, and there was nothing we could do about it.

For B2B service providers, this is a very real hazard. First you identify what works (or what the client likes). Then you repeat it, refining your approach and maybe delivering economies of scale. But then, after a while, you come to be seen as staid, uncreative or inflexible. You’re their best friend, but they’re looking for a bit of romance. So you’re left weeping softly while they ride off into the sunset with a dashing new supplier.

But the same thing works for you if you’re drumming up business. The marketing copywriter can provoke, cultivate and exploit the customer’s restlessness simply by positioning a product or service as an alternative to something: the customer’s current choice, the default option or the market leader.

In NLP this is called ‘contrast reframing’: asking the question ‘what if things were different?’ or ‘how could they be different?’Your product (you say) is great; theirs (you imply) is dull, outmoded or inferior. Simply by offering an alternative to what has become familiar, you can generate interest in the reader’s mind.

For example:

Ordinary kitchen roll is great for little spills. But Soakitup is completely different. It effortlessly mops away just about anything, from juice and wine through to sticky stuff like oils, sauces and even ink – without leaving a stain!

The alternative you offer needn’t even be better, just different. Many people will still respond sympathetically, as George W. Bush knew when he suggested that US students should ‘hear both sides’of the science v intelligent design debate. The urge for balance can be stronger than reason.

It is not daily increase but daily decrease; hack away the unessential… the height of cultivation always runs to simplicity. (Attributed to Bruce Lee)

Writing is hard. But cutting is harder. When you’ve sweated for hours – or days – to get your thoughts down on paper, the pain of deleting your precious words again can be intense. But it’s also essential.

What is the ideal length for a piece of copy? My suggestion would be ‘shorter than you think’, particularly if you know the subject well or it’s close to your heart. Whatever you’re working on – report, news article, marketing text, ad headline – there’s nearly always scope to cut without harming the message. And it’s nearly always the right move too: people rarely complain that things are too short. The key is to consider what the audience really needs to hear, as opposed to what you really want to say.

Bruce Lee had a lot to teach the copywriter

Interface Designer Mike Kuniavsky proposes six rules for web design, including ‘people hate to read’ and ‘people hate to scroll’. Although the web is essentially a text medium, it’s delivered through a format that’s hopeless for reading – a screen. We all know from our own experience how we really use the web – clicking and scrolling around at high speed, flitting between sites almost at random, only reading when we absolutely have to. So make sure you write online copy that suits these habits: make it as short as you possibly can.

Because it’s emotionally difficult to destroy your own text, I recommend saving a working version before you cut, or pasting bits you’ve cut into another document. That way you can go back to earlier versions or cut fragments later. You never will, but the backup gives you the courage to make bold cuts.

If in doubt, cut it out. Does the text still work? If the answer’s ‘yes’, you’ve got your new version.

If you’re working on something very short, like a company tagline, it’s a question of chipping away at the words until nothing further can be removed. For example, here are the last few iterations of the phrase I eventually chose to promote my own one-man company, ABC:

1. Is your message getting through to the people who matter most to your business?
2. Are you getting through to the people who matter most to your business?
3. Are you reaching the people who matter most to your business?
4. Are you reaching the people who matter most?
5. Are you reaching those who matter most?

The last few steps took several days of intermittent effort. It’s easy to turn out loads of words – it may seem counterintuitive, but shorter takes longer.

Getting the perfect phrasing is as much to do with subconscious thought as conscious effort. Often, a night’s sleep or a day away from the keyboard will allow the right solution to emerge, appearing in your mind or your notepad like it’s been there all along. And, in a way, it has – you just needed to ‘hack away the inessential’.