This paper studies the effectiveness of the use of metaphors as marketing tools. It is extremely common nowadays to try and have an impact on the consumers through the combination of various types of stimuli, e.g. linguistic, visual and symbolic. Let us think, for example, about the hood ornaments used by car companies such as Jaguar or Ferrari. The different forms of metaphors appear to influence brand vividness and differentiation as well as consumer preferences. The experiment described in the paper, which involved 424 subjects, suggests that the application and use of animal-based metaphors proved particularly effective in terms of marketing outcomes.