Metaphors: Marketing people are doing them wrong

Check out this ad from a debt consolidation service that I saw the other day...

Here's how that came to be...
"Hey, I was browsing the royalty-free clipart library and came up with a brilliant idea! Let's illustrate, in terms that people can easily understand and identify with, what living with massive, soul-crushing debt is like and how our services can ease that burden and give them a sense of freedom and release!"
"That is a great idea! Most people are oriented to think visually so this would be a very effective means of sharing with the public exactly what we can do for them. I love it! Run that baby!"
And run it they did, without giving much of a second thought to the message they're actually sending, which is...

"If you try to get out of debt by yourself, you'll just sit there, like some dumb old goldfish, stuck in a bowl full of life-sustaining water, swimming around without a single care in the world while somebody feeds and cleans up after you. Or... 

With our help, you can leap out on to the living room floor where you will suffocate and die. You're welcome."