Marketing Metaphoria: What Deep Metaphors Reveal About the Minds of Consumers (Hardcover)

by Gerald Zaltman (Author), Lindsay H. Zaltman (Author)
Key Phrases: workable wondering, other deep metaphors, one deep metaphor, Brief Guide, Overcoming Your Depth Deficit, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
Customers are harder to pin down than we think and they must be listened to more carefully. For that insight alone, this book should be welcomed. --The Financial Times, May 22, 2008

For marketing managers who are interested in thinking deeply about their products/brands and their relationship with their customers, this book is a must buy. --AMA Book Review, June 25, 2008

Product Description
Why do advertising campaigns and new products often fail? Why do consumers feel that companies don't understand their needs? Because marketers themselves don't think deeply about consumers' innermost thoughts and feelings. Marketing Metaphoria is a groundbreaking book that reveals how to overcome this "depth deficit" and find the universal drivers of human behavior so vital to a firm's success.



Marketing Metaphoria reveals the powerful unconscious viewing lenses--called "deep metaphors"-- that shape what people think, hear, say, and do.



Drawing on thousands of one-on-one interviews in more than thirty countries, Gerald Zaltman and Lindsay Zaltman describe how some of the world's most successful companies as well as small firms, not-for-profits, and social enterprises have successfully leveraged deep metaphors to solve a wide variety of marketing problems. Marketing Metaphoria should convince you that everything consumers think and do is influenced at unconscious levels--and it will give you access to those deeper levels of thinking.

"An imaginative and insightful application of cognitive science to the world of business, rich with implications for both fields."

-Steven Pinker, Johnstone Family Professor, Department of Psychology, Harvard University, and author, How the Mind Works and The Stuff of Thought.

"Marketing Metaphoria is one of the most fascinating business books I have read in a long time. A brilliant combination of deep insight and actionable advice, it will forever change how you think about marketing."

-Daniel H. Pink, author, A Whole New Mind

"Despite the availability of increasingly sophisticated methods, most customer relationships remain standardized, superficial, and lacking in informed customization. Through deep metaphors, the Zaltmans provide an insightful and provocative framework for identifying and learning from the implicit cognitive influences on customer decision making that can enhance and deepen intimacy and loyalty."

-Gary W. Loveman, Chairman, CEO and President, Harrah's Entertainment, Inc.

"Any business seeking to build global brands should read the Zaltmans' groundbreaking work on metaphors. The universal power of deep metaphors crosses borders and generations, and enduring brands trade off this thinking, whether their owners know it or not."

-Tom Long, President and CEO, Miller Brewing Company

"A disruptive book that will change how you think about customer insights. The emotional power offered within these pages will energize you to dig deeper into your business and turn thin functional insights into rich emotional messages that will propel your business."

-Donna J. Sturgess, Global Head of Innovation, GlaxoSmithKline

"With the profound advances in psychology and neuroscience over the past two decades, I'm convinced that now is the time for practitioners to rewrite the 'principles of marketing.' Marketing Metaphoria transforms insights from the authors' research into a rich framework that will help you think more deeply about your consumers and develop more innovative ideas for action. Read it twice, then keep it on your desk for ready reference."

-Bob Woodard, Vice President, Global Consumer and Customer Insights, Campbell Soup Company

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business School Press; illustrated edition edition (April 22, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1422121151
• ISBN-13: 978-1422121153
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #94,435 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars There is No Excuse Now!, May 1, 2008

By	Patricia M. Hawkins "Private Consultant" (Phoenix, AZ) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The Zaltmans' new book - "Marketing Metaphoria" - says it all!

Both Gerald and Lindsay Zaltman have provided us with a blueprint of understanding that is relevant to all product categories (globally!) and only needs one more "ingredient" to make it work for us - Deep Thinking!

In my almost 40 years in the profession of market research and market understanding, nothing has been clearer. We have tried detailed analyses of differences, numerous segmentation schemes....and countless other methods for helping our clients target their customers.

What all of us have missed was right in front of us - Deep Thinking about customers' lives, how they view their world, our world and the future.

As I read "Marketing Metaphoria", I was reminded of the graceful and precise lines of simple architecture. My husband, who is an architect, has always told me that designing a building with simple lines takes a great deal more work than a more complicated design.

That is what the Zaltmans have done for us. They have made it simple -- and if we don't read this book and really dive into our marketing plans with a "new approach" -- we are the ones to blame.

I urge every marketing professional to read this book and sit back and just "think" about it!

Patricia Mordigan Hawkins
Private Consultant
Phoenix, Arizona

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Only one criticism kept this from being a five star review, May 13, 2008

By	Dave Lakhani "BoldApproach.com" (Boise, ID United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Let me start by saying I think that Gerald Zaltman is a marketing genius and I love all of his work including this book.

His detailed explanation of the deep myths that are effective in advertising and creating stories that sell is impressive. His research is clearly deep and insightful. But, he doesn't give a clear path to illiciting metaphors in your own group (he uses his proprietary process, Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique) and he gives more information about that in his previous book "How Customers Think." He also doesn't give a clear outline of how marketers might implement his findings in their own work. I'd like to have seen more specific examples around how you can apply these techniques in the stories you create.

This book deserves deep study though for the metaphors he idendifies and the motivating examples he uses to demonstrate each metaphor. With a little thought, creattivity and experimentation you'll be able to figure out how to apply them to your own creative and to your strategies.

The book is very easy to read and understand and in typical Zaltman fashion he makes very detailed research easy to understand and read. This along with his previous book should be on your regular research shelf. I realize I'm being a little picky about my criticism of this book but I'm so used to walking away feeling like I have new immediately implementable tools and this time I felt great but like he'd left some of his magic out and I missed it.

Get this book, you'll be very happy you did.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Getting managers thinking, May 14, 2008

By	Ms. J. S. Rees "Judy Rees" (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Another great book from Zaltman, with more excellent insights into the way people think.

I found it a more straightforward read than the excellent 'How Customers Think'. And it has an even blunter message for managers: "Start paying proper attention to how your customers really make their buying decisions, or miss out!"

As a metaphor elicitation specialist I was wowed by some of the fine detail, such as the description of the relationship between deep metaphor and emotion. But if most readers focus on the high-level message - the crucial importance of deep metaphor in guiding human behaviour - I'll be absolutely delighted!

If, like reviewer Dave Lakhani, you're disappointed by the book's lack of a detailed methodology for eliciting metaphors, why not check out a non-proprietary technique such as Clean Language? Though I suppose I would say that, wouldn't I... :-)