Monster Problem: Make a Metaphor Carry a Real Demonstration

Read the campaign story

Miro’s first major national advertising campaign launched in May 2022 with Öpınıonated. Monster Problem used a giant-creature scenario to dramatise a team working through a difficult task. Andreas Nilsson directed through Biscuit Filmworks. The campaign included television, print and digital activity, with related production material explaining how the team used Miro while developing the work.

A contemporary creator interview distinguishes ideation and interface storyboarding in Miro from production and animation completed with other tools. The later brand article describes its own collaboration experience; it is not an independent productivity comparison. This case groups the film, related executions and behind-the-scenes material. The fictional emergency is not evidence that the software is suitable for crisis response or can solve every problem.

Editorial interpretation: a literal monster turns an abstract phrase into a situation the viewer can understand quickly. The exaggeration creates space for humour without requiring a detailed industry-specific brief. That breadth is useful only if the product’s role remains visible. A story can be memorable and still fail to explain why the advertiser is present, so the demonstration must carry a meaningful part of the narrative rather than arrive as a final logo.

Editorial interpretation: showing how a campaign was made can create a second layer of explanation. It reveals an ordinary use of the tool behind the extraordinary fiction. But the two layers should not be confused. A production team’s account is a selected experience shaped by its needs, skills and commercial relationship. It can illustrate a workflow without proving that other teams will work faster or obtain the same creative result.

Choose a metaphor that simplifies the problem without replacing it

Identify the real difficulty the metaphor represents, such as connecting ideas or making a decision visible. Keep that difficulty understandable when the entertainment is removed. A small team can test a simple original illustration before producing an elaborate film. Avoid a metaphor so broad that it appears to promise a universal solution. The audience should be able to translate the scene back into an ordinary task that the product can plausibly support.

Build the demonstration into the causal sequence

Show the relevant action, what information it changes and how the people use it. Do not rely on a rapid interface montage as proof that the product solved the problem. Keep simulated screens clearly distinguishable from current feature documentation, and provide accurate detail elsewhere. A useful story gives viewers enough evidence to explain the tool’s contribution while preserving the human judgement and other resources needed to complete the task.

Use process content to disclose dependencies as well as strengths

A behind-the-scenes account is more informative when it names the other tools, specialists and review stages involved. Do not imply that everything visible in the finished campaign was created inside the advertised product. Separate the team’s reported experience from measured comparative evidence. A small organisation can show a modest, repeatable workflow with its limitations rather than constructing a polished origin story that hides the labour or specialist knowledge required to produce the result.

A small test for another brief

Proposed adaptation: an adult board-game club could use an original illustrated tangle of fictional event ideas as a visual metaphor for a planning problem. Compare a metaphor-led storyboard with a plain explanation of the same sorting exercise. Show how a simple paper or digital board groups ideas, while people still decide which fictional event to discuss. Use no live emergency, real customer data or copied monster design.

Measure whether viewers can translate the metaphor into the actual task and explain the board’s limited contribution. Separate amusement from assumptions that the tool guarantees agreement, speed or creative quality.

Stop if the metaphor implies crisis-response suitability, obscures the demonstration or makes the finished prototype look like a feature available in a real product.

• Use synthetic material and clearly label all interface images as prototypes.
• Show one observable organising action and the human decision that follows.
• Include a short process note identifying any other tools used to make the storyboard.