Veksner: Do analogies still work?
August 19 2013, 7:30 am | | 1 Comment
By Simon Veksner
Head of Ideas
Naked Communications
This ad about ‘Marmite Neglect’ is great, but it’s copped a lot of flak (over 400 complaints so far) because some people apparently think it’s disrespectful.
I find that quite sad. The subject obviously isn’t animal neglect at all, it’s just an analogy. READ MORE…
1 Comment
This blog post is classic inside-the-beltway blindness. Human beings haven’t ceased to grasp analogies. People aren’t complaining about the Marmite spot because of the particular ‘creative device’ it uses. They’re complaining because the particular analogy is trying to do a gag around fricking animal cruelty. It’s insensitive and unfunny, and you’d have to have a particularly internal perspective to see the public response as a sign of a recent drop in their ability to appreciate analogy. Meaningful comparisons will continue to be useful ways of communicating a thought, but we need to apply a little humanity in choosing them.