Hi, I’m the Average Adman, and I’m LIKE an addict to analogies.
I don’t just use them at work. I use them at dinner, at weddings, when I’m trying to get my kid to eat broccoli. Love is LIKE Wi-Fi—unstable when you need it most. Friendship is LIKE Spotify—great until the algorithm decides otherwise. Buying milk is LIKE a focus group—you always come back with more than you needed. Mondays are LIKE expired yoghurt—nobody wants them, but here they come. Dating apps are LIKE vending machines with broken buttons. Marriage is LIKE IKEA—looks simple until you start assembling. Hangovers are LIKE unpaid internships: long, painful, and barely worth it. Deadlines are LIKE horror films: predictable but still terrifying. PLEASE STOP ME.
It’s LIKE a sickness. But it’s also LIKE our greatest trick.
It’s not a technique anymore—it’s LIKE a way of thinking. Some people count calories. We count comparisons, LIKE breathing is LIKE benchmarking: constant and unnoticed until it stops.
And in advertising, that’s LIKE our drug of choice. An idea can be many things: a bold statement, a hyperbole, a sharp insight. But most often, it’s LIKE an analogy. Why? Because analogies are wild—LIKE fireworks in a PowerPoint deck. Or at least they feel wild. The campaign might be safe, the media predictable, the execution forgettable. But when someone leans forward in a boardroom and says, “This is LIKE falling in love,” suddenly we’re visionaries.
That’s the paradox: analogies are our bravest comfort zone. They give us LIKE a hit of danger without real risk. LIKE karaoke—you feel wild, but you’re still reading off a screen. LIKE roller coasters—you scream, but the track never changes. LIKE agency life—you leave, but end up in the same job six months later.
And they work. Analogies flatten complexity, make dull things digestible, turn ordinary into emotional. They’re LIKE fast food—cheap, quick, everywhere. They’re LIKE haute cuisine—same ingredients, just plated with drama. They’re LIKE religion—repeated until they become truth. They’re LIKE sex—everyone claims theirs are wild, most are routine. They’re LIKE therapy—you leave thinking you’ve changed, but you haven’t. They’re LIKE magic tricks—you know it’s fake, but you clap anyway.
It’s not just marketers. The world runs on analogies. Cooking is LIKE art. Sport is LIKE life. Life is LIKE a marathon. War is LIKE chess. Chess is LIKE Netflix: slow, full of pawns, and nobody understands the ending. Rain is LIKE spam email: unwanted but constant. Social media is LIKE junk food: addictive, cheap, and leaves you emptier than before. You can keep the chain going forever. Analogies are LIKE duct tape for human thought—we grab them when things fall apart.
But here’s the thing: in our industry, analogies aren’t just thought experiments. They’re the product. Soap becomes LIKE “real beauty.” Toilet paper becomes LIKE “saving the planet.” Water becomes LIKE “liquid death.” Customers don’t buy the thing. They buy the analogy.
So yes, we’re addicts. But maybe that’s the craft. Our job isn’t to invent new worlds—it’s to make the old world LIKE it’s magical. To make average things shine LIKE they borrowed light from somewhere else.
And for all our talk of bravery, disruption, reinvention—this might be the bravest move we’ve got: finding the right analogy and selling it LIKE gospel.
Analogy is LIKE… magic. Or LIKE duct tape. Or LIKE karaoke. Or LIKE IKEA furniture. Or LIKE a bad Tinder date. Or LIKE spam email. Or LIKE climate change. Or LIKE déjà vu. Or LIKE déjà vu again. Or LIKE my grandmother’s cooking. Or LIKE capitalism. Or LIKE my inbox on Monday. Or LIKE the universe itself: expanding, absurd, unstoppable… LIKE me, right now.
