More innovative but less socially responsible: The influence of using metaphors in marketing communications on product perception, choice, and adoption intention
研究基于加工流畅性理论，通过八项实验发现，营销中使用隐喻虽能让产品显得更具创新性，但也会降低其社会责任感感知，进而影响不同价值观消费者的选择与采纳意愿。
Abstract Metaphors appear frequently in marketing communications. Prior literature evokes various positive outcomes of using metaphors to promote products but offers relatively limited insights into the potentially negative effects of this rhetorical figure on product perception, product choice, and adoption intention. Building on processing fluency theory, the authors investigate benefits and drawbacks of using metaphors to promote products. The results of eight studies reveal that, compared with literal claims, metaphors can make products appear more innovative but also less socially responsible. A dual process explains these effects on product perception: consumers tend to view products promoted with metaphors as more unfamiliar and thus innovative, but also as more untrustworthy and thus less socially responsible. In a further step, by examining whether using metaphors to promote products increases or decreases product choice and adoption intentions, the authors find increased product choice for brands with innovative personalities but diminished product choice for brands with socially responsible personalities. Using metaphors also boosts the adoption intentions of consumers who value innovativeness in products but lowers these intentions among consumers who value social responsibility. These findings offer novel insights into the effects of metaphors, along with actionable recommendations for practitioners.