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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Good Insights
The book reveals some great insights about consumer thinking models. To the point, well structured and very helpful for those of us that work for brand communications this publication is a great stepping stone for further consumer investigations.
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Get away from the marketing treadmill
On the treadmill of front-line marketing, it's easy to get caught up in the never-ending lists and deadlines, rather than stepping back to think more broadly and deeply about who we really are, who we're trying to reach and what we're really trying to accomplish.
As I read the Zaltmans' Marketing Metaphoria, it felt like a sudden holiday getaway that whisked me away from my lists and deadlines and into a calmer, almost meditative place. Readable and engaging, this book helped me step back and reflect on the great metaphors that make humans tick. The Zaltmans' genius is in not only identifying these metaphors, but also helping the reader understand their relevance in marketing and communication strategy. The book does a beautiful job illustrating how "deep metaphors" are the story elements and images that create meaning and purpose in people's lives. With many great examples they also illustrate how insightful marketers can use these deep metaphors to create meaning and purpose for companies, brands and products in people's lives.
Like any great holiday getaway, at the end I was not only refreshed and rejuvenated, but I was changed for the better. This book's vivid examples and passion for the subject make it irresistible for marketing professionals to look for themselves, their customers, brands and companies amongst the metaphors - and to begin "deep thinking" about their work.
For anyone interested in more than just superficial communication, marketing, image or brand, this book will provide gratifying insights that change how you understand and craft the stories you tell.
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Timely and much needed
The Zaltmans' new book can truly be described as insightful. By way of transparency, I should point out that I am priveleged enough to have Jerry Zaltman's endorsement on the back cover of my own recently released book, "Brand Meaning." Though I have never met him, I know Jerry to be an astute and visionary commentator on consumer behavior. Anybody who has read "How Customers Think" will know that. What "Marketing Metaphoria" illustrates so well is that only by probing deep into the way people think about and view the world around them can one hope to connect with consumers in a visceral and enduring way. The book provides a framework for identifying such "implicit cognitive influences" (see back cover) - here in the form of deep matephors - and that is what makes it important reading.Brand Meaning
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Brilliant and well-needed resource for marketing ( indyfleming )
...as a professional who has introduced neuroscience into leadership, I can personally attest to the importance of "thinking more about our thinking" when it comes to why we do what we do. Though we all on some level know this, Zaltman has written brilliantly and pragmatically these sometimes forgotten truths that truly affect decision making. This is a classic!
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A Resource to Transform Your Thinking ( mccartms )
By way of full disclosure, I was a graduate assistant for Jerry Zaltman when he was a Professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Naturally, I've followed Jerry's many publications for these past 20 years and have never found the time I've invested in reading his latest ideas less than incredibly worthwhile.
Interestingly, I bought this book based solely on the title and my expectation that it would be full of new ideas and insights about how using metaphors in marketing tactics would influence consumer behavior. While this book does cover material related to that sort of thing, it really covers so much more. The first two chapters on thinking deeply, "Workable Wondering" and focusing on consumer similarities set the stage for how to take the insights and ideas from the next 7 chapters (one per each deep metaphor) and incorporate them into your own thinking. The last chapter ties things together and presents a number of ideas for how Deep Metaphors may influence a number of marketing strategies and tactics.
This book is written to stimulate your thinking about how Deep Metaphors apply in many areas of marketing and consumer behavior. It doesn't present a list of "to dos" or lay out a plan of action that you should follow. Instead, you'll find yourself seeing what you, your consumers and your competitors do in a new light.
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