Abstract

This empirical study investigates the effectiveness of synaesthetic metaphors in commercial advertising, focusing on their cognitive perception among college students and subsequent influence on purchase decisions. Synaesthetic metaphor, a cognitive mechanism that blends sensory modalities, is increasingly used in advertising to create vivid and memorable messages. Drawing on multimodal metaphor theory, the study examines how sensory blending operates psychologically in advertising contexts. A questionnaire survey was conducted with 233 undergraduates across four academic years, analyzing three advertisement formats: text-only, image-text, and video-text. The results reveal significant gender differences and a positive correlation between educational level and metaphor comprehension. Advertisements combining images and text yield the highest recognition accuracy, indicating that multimodal presentation enhances comprehensibility. Notably, 62.66% of respondents agree that synaesthetic metaphors increase their desire to purchase. Statistical analysis shows significant positive correlations among metaphor recognition, perceived watchability, and purchase intention. A one-way ANOVA confirms that advertisement format significantly affects metaphor recognition, with image‑text ads performing best. These findings offer theoretical insights into cross-modal cognition and practical guidance for advertisers aiming to engage younger, media‑savvy audiences. The study underscores the importance of clear metaphorical design, audience segmentation, and multimodal integration in advertising strategy.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.