A Metaphor is Sóóó Creative but Unclear: Effects of Metaphorical Health-Campaign Slogans and Markers on Creativity, Clarity, and Appreciation

Metaphors are widely used in health campaign slogans to change health behavior. While metaphors can attract attention by presenting audience members with a puzzle to solve, they can also make slogans less clear. Markers can potentially help to process metaphors. To test the effects of metaphorical health slogans with and without markers, we conducted three experiments (Ntotal = 696), each using a 2 (metaphor, literal) × 3 (no marker, lexical marker, lexical-typographical marker) mixed Latin square design, targeting different unhealthy behaviors: smoking (Study 1), drinking alcohol (Study 2) and eating junk food (Study 3). Across the three studies, results demonstrated metaphorical slogans are perceived as more creative and less clear than literal slogans. In Studies 1 and 2, metaphorical slogans were appreciated less than literal slogans. Only in Study 1 did a lexical-typographical marker increase the clarity of the health campaign slogans. Metaphors can thus spark attention, while markers have limited effects.