Why is it common to use Metaphor and Metonymy in Advertisements? The Case of Deutsche Bank

Seminar paper from the year 2020 in the subject Communications - Public Relations, Advertising, Marketing, Social Media, grade: 2,3, RWTH Aachen University (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik), language: English, abstract: The present paper deals with metaphors and metonyms in advertising. With the focus on the following question: "Why is it common to use Metaphor and Metonymy in advertisements?" it should be explained step by step why these concepts became common in advertising media. Living in the 20th century, we are experiencing a huge development in technology compared to the past. In the past it was only possible to distribute advertising through television, radio and newspapers. Nowadays new possibilities are coming up through the expansion of social media. Since almost everybody owns a smartphone, most of the people are always available. This gives new opportunities to the advertising industry. For this purpose, the first step is to try to present the complex concept of metaphor in a concise way. However, this can only be done superficially in the scope of this term paper, otherwise the scope of the work will be exceeded. Furthermore, a short explanation of target and source domain is given. In the second chapter the topic of metonymy is then summarized. Again, it should be noted that an appropriate, detailed description would exceed the limits of the work. In the third part of the work the actual effect of metaphors and metonyms in advertisements will be illustrated. Images from a ‘Deutsche Bank’ advertising campaign are used for this purpose. The first part of this chapter presents the company ‘Deutsche Bank’ as such. This is considered important because the values of the company could be reflected in their campaigns and that aspect, therefore would be important for the following analysis. This is followed by an analysis of the images used in terms of metaphor and metonymy. In the analysis of the metaphors, the focus is on target/source domain. In the last chapter of the paper, the work is briefly summarized. The results are listed and answered regarding the question posed. A short summary forms the end of the work