Mood of the Nation™ is a pulse check of people surveyed through Protobrand’s online metaphor elicitation tool Meta4 Insight™. The study provides a complete picture of how people feel, providing the ‘why’ behind the their behavior. With Meta4, participants use imagery in an online environment to express themselves, allowing us to extract the underlying emotional and cognitive frameworks they use to make sense of the world.
The study taps into the collective unconscious of the Canadian and American psyche and reveals a prevailing metaphor that’s best personified by the beat of a snare drum. “Since our last study wave in the US, we have witnessed the emergence of the tympanic drumbeat that begins to capture the potential for a new rhythm of existence and the elevated prospects for economic stability,” explains Stephen Hahn-Griffiths, Chief Strategist at Protobrand. “Occasionally, the consumer drumbeat in the US transitions into becoming an instrument of alarm, in heralding a warning for lack of economic prosperity and the continuation of trying times.” The study revealed the Canadian drum is not only beating a little faster and more harmoniously, but it is also signaling an emerging rhapsody of freedom that’s accented by a sense of live more freely, in being free to be themselves, and to more readily get into the groove of feeling economic prosperity. Read more.
Follow actual respondent output from our Meta4 tool as it is released.
As we approach advertising’s big day, the Super Bowl, we pay special attention, not only to companies’ ads, but also their social media efforts. Social media is revolutionizing both the way we maintain social connections and the way we connect with our favorite brands. In order to better understand the ever-increasing role of social media, we explored the deep metaphorical frames that people use to understand their relationships with social media in our recent study, “Mood of the Nation.” We discovered a heavily divided population fraught with complicated tensions, but sharing a common desire to find the best way to foster meaningful connection. to cause as much harm as good. Just like partygoers trying to figure out how strong the punch is, social media users are struggling to figure out how to balance the benefits of social media with concerns about privacy and addiction. Read more.
This month’s metaphor “The Snow Globe” captures our need to create an emotional space for the holidays that is set apart and protected from the struggles of daily life. "Everything that consumers want the holidays to be exists inside the snow globe: happy memories, peaceful moments, perfect gifts, reunions with loved ones, great food, and warm, lively parties," says Phil Granof CEO of Protobrand. "The worrisome realities of daily life–personal financial struggles, the fiscal cliff, wars, even the desperate hope of winning the Powerball lottery–threaten our vision of the ideal holiday season and must remain outside the plastic dome." Like a snow globe, our holiday hopes can withstand a little shaking, but too much force from the outside can shatter our illusions of holiday perfection. Read more.
Well, it’s not exactly a desire for “bread, peace, and land,” but what our latest study has uncovered is that people are grappling with underlying feelings of comfort vs. discomfort as they contemplate which Presidential Candidate to vote for. Our research revealed a Metaphor of the Month for October: “Back On The Road To Comfort.”
This deep-seated metaphorical expression of people’s emotions reflects the recent improvements in consumer sentiment. It’s a pervasive feeling born out of the collective unconscious of America based on what’s happening in culture, the nano-economics of the American people, and the socio-political undercurrents of the Presidential Election. Read more.