Technique
Visual metaphor
Ads in which a single striking image, visual pun or metaphor does the persuading, often with few or no words.
2020s
2010s
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2018Follow the Arches
Tight crops of the golden arches bend left, right or into a U-turn, turning a fragment of the familiar logo into road signs for drivers.
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2017Pass the Heinz
Close-ups of fries, a cheeseburger and a steak with no ketchup anywhere let the absent sauce do the selling as the viewer's appetite fills the gap.
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2013The Autocomplete Truth
A search box placed over each woman's mouth works like a gag, so a single image shows prejudice silencing women.
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Coke HandsCoca-Cola2012
Coke Hands
The brand's familiar white ribbon is redrawn as two arms meeting in the middle, so the mark itself becomes the picture and no logo is needed.
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Heaven and HellSamsonite2011
Heaven and Hell
A heavenly flight above and a red-lit underworld below, where the suitcases are put through hell, picture baggage handling as torment to dramatise durability.
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2011Unhate
Adversaries locked in tender embraces above one word turn reconciliation into a picture, carrying the brand's stance on tolerance through image alone.
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2010Embrace Life
The wife's and daughter's arms become the seat belt, a single image suggesting that the people who love you are why you buckle up.
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2010Music. See What It's Made Of.
Star portraits that break up close into tiny pictures of the artists who shaped them make the line about what music is made of literally visible.
2000s
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2006Sundial
The shadow of a metal M sweeps across a different breakfast item each hour, turning the logo into a clock that shows when breakfast ends.
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ImagineLEGO2005
Imagine (Periscope)
A periscope built from LEGO pieces pokes up out of a flat blue LEGO sea, so two bricks and one word conjure a whole hidden submarine.
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2004Lightbulb
A giant three-dimensional light bulb on a plain red poster stands for a bright idea, so one symbol and a logo do the work of a headline.
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Small but tough. Polo.Volkswagen2003
Cops
A single photograph of police under fire all sheltering behind a little Polo is the entire ad, trusting readers to make the connection in a second.
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2003iPod Silhouettes
Copy-free posters reduce dancers to black silhouettes on flat colour with only the white earphones picked out, letting art direction carry the entire argument.
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Beach, Bar, PoolClub 18-302002
Beach, Bar, Pool
Crowded holiday snaps hide visual double meanings, with bodies, drinks and props lining up into innuendo that rewards a second look.
1990s
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Milk. What a surprise!National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board (MilkPEP)1995
The Milk Mustache ("Milk. What a Surprise!")
A white film of milk on a famous upper lip becomes an endlessly repeatable visual shorthand showing that even stars drink milk.
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Power is nothing without control.Pirelli1994
Power Is Nothing Without Control (Carl Lewis)
The fastest man in the world, crouched in the blocks in red stilettos, is a visual paradox showing that speed is wasted without control.
1980s
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Perception. Reality.Rolling Stone1985
Perception. Reality.
Side-by-side pictures, a psychedelic VW bus beside a sensible sedan, make the argument visually, with just one word over each.
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1983Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Drunk
Two glasses colliding and shattering stand in for a car crash, turning a drink into the image of a collision without showing a road.
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(No copy — a slash in purple silk, plus the government health warning.)Silk Cut (Gallaher)1983
Silk Cut (the purple silk)
Rippling purple silk with a single slash spells out the brand name as a wordless visual pun, with no logo, product or copy beyond the health warning.
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Absolut Perfection.Absolut Vodka1980
Absolut Perfection
A halo over the bottle launches a long-running format of bottle-shaped visual puns that makes the pack itself the hero of every execution.
1970s
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Surreal Gold Pack PostersBenson & Hedges (Gallaher)1977
Surreal Gold Pack Posters
Magritte-like visual riddles hide the gold pack inside baffling pictures with almost no words, so the harder each is to decode, the longer people look.
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Girl or boy, two is enough.Singapore Family Planning and Population Board1972
Stop at Two ("Girl or Boy, Two Is Enough")
Two sisters of different ages sharing an apple under one umbrella picture the ideal family as two children, spaced apart, whatever their sex.
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Would you be more careful if it was you that got pregnant?Health Education Council (UK)1970
Pregnant Man ("Would you be more careful if it was you that got pregnant?")
A man resting his hand on a heavily pregnant belly reverses the roles, building empathy through one absurd picture rather than pages of argument.
1960s
1940s
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Monsavon au laitMonsavon1949
Monsavon au lait
A cow whose udders empty straight into a giant bar of soap shows the milk ingredient in one picture, grasped in a second with barely a word.
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1943We Can Do It!
A worker rolling up her sleeve and flexing her arm turns 'we can do it' into a single image of strength.
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1943When You Ride Alone You Ride with Hitler!
A ghostly outline of Hitler in the empty passenger seat turns driving alone into riding with the enemy.
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1942Someone Talked!
With only two words, the accusing finger and dark water do the persuading and leave viewers to supply the story.
1930s
1910s
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Soaring to Success! Daily Herald – the Early BirdDaily Herald1919
Soaring to Success! Daily Herald – the Early Bird
A flock of angular birds, half nature and half machine, wheels across bright yellow, picturing the paper as the early bird soaring to success.
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1917Wake Up, America! Civilization Calls Every Man, Woman and Child!
A sleeping Columbia stands for a dozing nation, so the single image carries the argument that America must wake up.
1900s
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1909Le Thermogène
A Pierrot hugging a wad of the product while breathing a plume of fire dramatises its heat in one figure instead of describing it.
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Hermann Scherrer. Breechesmaker. Sporting-Tailor.Hermann Scherrer (tailor, Munich)1907
Hermann Scherrer: Breechesmaker, Sporting-Tailor
A striding rider built from flat planes of colour makes his loud checked breeches the most eye-catching thing on the wall, putting the product at the centre.
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PriesterPriester (match manufacturer)1906
Priester
Two matchsticks and the brand name, with everything else thrown out, form one stark image a passer-by can grasp in an instant on a crowded street.
1890s
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Nunc est bibendum!Michelin1898
Nunc est bibendum!
Raising a goblet of nails and broken glass over deflated rivals, the figure built from tyres pictures the claim that the tyre drinks up obstacles.
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1896Rowntree's Elect Cocoa
A portly figure over a teacup, reduced to flat silhouette beside the brand name, lets one stark image land even when glimpsed from a passing horse-bus.
Visual metaphor: how it works
A visual metaphor makes the argument with a picture: a single image, a visual pun or an unexpected combination that the viewer decodes in an instant. It is the defining skill of great poster and print advertising, where there is no sound, no motion and often only a second or two of attention.
How to spot it
- Very few words, sometimes none beyond the brand name.
- An image that means two things at once, or turns the product into a symbol.
- The viewer completes the idea, which is part of the pleasure.
Why it works
An image the audience has to work out is remembered far better than a statement it is simply told, and it travels across languages. The best examples make a single idea so clear that the product needs no explanation at all.