Brand Voice and The Power of Words: Simile and Metaphor

Purple Cow.  Duct Tape Marketing. Blue Ocean Strategy.

Recognize the names of those books?

Is any one of them actually about cows, tape, or the ocean?

Not even remotely. Those titles use metaphor to describe different marketing strategies, ideas, and techniques in a way that we can instantly recognize and understand (a purple cow stands out, duct tape is useful, and a big blue ocean is deep and wide).

Metaphors and their cousins similes are linguistic dance steps that take the lead for our audiences in a quickstep of understanding. (<– That’s a metaphor, by …

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Brand Voice and the Power of Words: Syntax

There’s an old joke email that’s gone ’round the web about a zillion times (the kind of thing your quirky uncle — or in my case, my quirky father-in-law — still forwards you daily) that asks the question, “Why did the chicken cross the road?” and gives the answers of many favorite authors.  My favorite was always Ernest Hemingway:

Why did the chicken cross the road?
To die. In the rain.

Maybe I only think it’s funny because I had to do an excruciating term paper in high school English comparing …

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Brand Voice and The Power of Words: Diction

Consider these two sentences:

The pooch bounced up to her and kissed her face.
The cur launched itself at her and slobbered on her face.

They convey the exact same information—that a dog licked a woman—but they convey two very different emotional scenarios.

Words are powerful. The words you choose will subconsciously affect the way you and your customers feel about your business. In addition, if you subscribe to the concept of manifesting, the words you use can have a powerful effect on the things you bring into your business and your life.

When it …

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