Psychology Behind Advertising

The parable of the unfree client

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Legend says the mighty Persian king Bahram Gur once went a-hunting. But he failed to catch even a single wild donkey.

Angry and tired, Bahram Gur, along with his vizier and priest, then happened upon a lovely village.

But nobody came out of the village to greet the great king or offer him food or drink. So in his bad mood, Bahram cursed the village and said,

“May this green prosperous village be a den
of beasts — a wild and uncultivated fen”

The priest at the king’s side lived to make his lord’s wishes come true. And he knew just what to do. So he rode into the village, assembled the people there, and decided to ruin their lives.

“King Bahram is pleased with your village,” he said. “So he has decided to reward you. From now on, all of you are free and equal. Children are equal to adults. Women are equal to men. Workers are equal to headmen.”

The people rejoiced.

A year later, Bahram Gur went a-hunting again in the same country. And he happened upon the once-beautiful village.

But this time, all he saw was a scrawny cat wandering the empty, trash-littered main street. A torn bra dangled from one window. A dirty baby sat on the corner, drinking wine and smoking a cigar.

“What awful thing happened here?” asked Bahram Gur, close to tears. “Priest, make sure these people get whatever they need to repair this once-beautiful village.”

“It shall be done, my lord” said the priest.

And he rode into town, assembled the drunken, dirty, diseased locals, and gave them the gift of order and hierarchy once again.

​​Within a year, the cat fattened up, the streets turned clean, and that dirty baby became an honor student who listened to his parents.

This thousand-year-old story is in part social propaganda. After all, it’s not clear that humans really need to be ruled for peace and harmony to abide. So it makes sense to tell them stories like this to make them believe that’s the case.

But in part, this story is also an allegory about human nature.

Because there’s no denying our brain loves to minimize thinking. And while we might not need order, authority, and hierarchy… we certainly crave those things on some level.

I’ve noticed this with my clients. The more I take charge of the client relationship, the more I tell my clients how it is… the more they respect the work I do, and the more they pay me, without any questions.

But this same idea goes just beyond copywriting client work. So let me leave you with a Bahram-like couplet to sum it up:

“Strip away his freedoms, and make things black and white —
Your prospect will love you, and feel you must be right!”

For more commandments, delivered to your brain each day, just as you’re getting antsy about the lack of order in your life, click here and follow the instructions.

5 (+ five) easy ecommerce pieces

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See if you can spot the one green “5” in the picture below:

Wasn’t hard, was it?

But if I asked you how many 5’s there are in the above picture, that wouldn’t be as easy. In fact it might be a pain in the ass, and you might give up rather than count.

Counting doesn’t come natural to us. Our eyes and brain have to work at it.

Not so with contrast.

We’re kind of like that T-Rex in the original Jurassic Park. “Don’t move… it can’t see us if we don’t move.” In other words, create enough contrast, and your prospect immediately sees the message you want him to see.

Of course, marketers have long known about this. And they have long used it to make more sales. As Rich Schefren likes to say, different is better than better.

Anyways, that was my little intro to try to sell you on watching the video below. It’s a recording of a presentation Stefan Georgi gave a few weeks ago. And it’s all about split tests he always recommends performing in ecommerce funnels.

I’ve done a lot of work on the direct response side of ecommerce. And I knew some of Stefan’s split tests. But most were new to me.

And while it’s not guaranteed that any of these split tests will win for any specific funnel, all of them sound reasonable. Because all of them are based on fundamentals.

Stuff like contrast… or reason why… or guiding your prospect’s attention… or cutting down his confusion.

So if you’d like to see all of Stefan’s split tests, along with his breakneck explanations for what exactly to test and why, you can find it at the YouTube video below.

But be careful. Because the first two-thirds of Stefan’s presentation are all about these split tests. But then Stefan shifts gear.

​​And he gives a soft pitch for the Copy Accelerator live event that’s happening in Scottsdale at the end of this month.

I say be careful because you can get sucked into Stefan’s pitch. For example, it happened to me.

After watching Stefan’s presentation yesterday and hearing his pitch, I found myself excited abuot going to the Copy Accelerator event. Even though I’d have to fly halfway around the world to do it (what a contrast and a pain)… and even though I’d have to laboriously count out a bunch of simoleons for plane tickets, hotel rooms, and for the event admission itself.

We will see how that ends up. ​​

In the meantime, if you’re already planning on going to Stefan’s event, let me know. So far, I’ve only met 2 people in real life who read my email newsletter. I’d like to maybe bring that up to 3, and meeting you there might sway me to go.

(Whaat? You’re not signed up to my email newsletter? You can fix that here.)

And if you’re not going to Copy Accelerator (yet), or if you just want to see Stefan’s ecommerce optimizations, here’s the money-making video:

Obvious one-time product placement inside

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“Mona, I am drinking my milk right now.”

He pours out a full glass of milk with an ice cube in it. He tops it off with vodka from a Smirnoff bottle. And he drinks it down.

I saw this scene from Mad Men once, probably 15 years ago.

I thought it was great. It still sticks in my mind. But I never did buy a bottle of Smirnoff. And if I were to ever buy vodka, Smirnoff wouldn’t be my first choice.

So product placements — do they work?

Professors in business schools trip over each other to answer this question.

They take real TV shows. They splice in different kinds of product placements. They show them to students. And then they ask, “By the way… what do you happen to think of Smirnoff?”

As a result, these marketing professors come up with conclusions like:

1. If a product placement is subtle, then repeated exposure actually improves attitude towards a brand.

2. If a product placement is obvious, then repeated exposure hurts attitude towards a brand.

Interesting, right? Except you can’t really tell what it means in the real world.

After all, like my Smirnoff story from above shows, a product placement can “work” great. And yet still no sale.

But here’s a surprising bit from the same research, which might be more useful. These marketing professors also asked students, “Oh, and even more by the way… what did you think of the show?”

Same show of course, just different types of product placements spliced in. Result:

1. People liked the TV show the most if it had a SINGLE OBVIOUS product placement…

2. Next came the show with MULTIPLE SUBTLE product placements…

3. Next, the show with a SINGLE SUBTLE product placement…

4. And finally, far down in last place, MULTIPLE OBVIOUS product placements. People really didn’t like the show in this case.

Which fits my beliefs about how we all go through life.

We like buying stuff. We also like shortcuts that cut down our work of making buying decisions. But we want to feel we are in control of those decisions… even when we are not.

Whatever. I thought this might be useful to you, in case you have your own TV show, whether that’s an email newsletter, or a YouTube channel, or your own Facebook group.

It’s not clear that an occasional clear plug will be optimal for your sales. But if your biz is built on relationship first… and sales numbers only second… then the above academic result is something to consider.

And in that spirit, let me say I found out the above while doing research for my upcoming book. It’s called The Gospel of Insight Marketing. And it’s all about the most powerful way to persuade people to buy… even in markets where people are jaded, hostile, or frankly indifferent to your pitch.

The book isn’t out yet. I’m working on it now. But I won’t bring it up again, at least not obviously, until it’s ready for reading. After all, I care my relationship with you… and science says this is the way to go.

Finally:

If you’d like to find out when my Gospel book is ready for reading… sign up for my email newsletter.

Free self-assessment: Which ad won?

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Do you want a little self-assessment? If you do, take the A/B test below:

VERSION A

[Illustration: Panel containing a list of symptoms of nervous trouble]

Headline: Thousands suffer from sick nerves and don’t know it

VERSION B

[Illustration: Photograph of a nerve specialist]

Headline: Have you these symptoms of nerve exhaustion?

One of these ads was a big flop and ran only once. The other was a big success and ran over and over.

So which is which?

Think about it…

… think…

… take your time…

… all right. You ready?

The winner is B. But the right answer is less important than what you yourself thought the right answer was. Here’s what I’m thinking.

According to John Caples, who reported this A/B test in his Tested Advertising Methods, headline B won because it has the word you. On the other hand, says Caples, the losing headline is “simply a statement of fact.”

It certainly could be that. But maybe it’s the word these in the winning headline. Or maybe it’s the picture of the nerve specialist.
​
Or maybe, and this is just my guess, it’s that word thousands that killed the losing version. Because dig it:

One of the fundamental needs we all have is to feel special. That need is so powerful that sometimes, we are willing to hang on to our pain because it allows us to keep feeling special.

“Thousands might suffer from sick nerves… but that’s not my case unfortunately. My case is unique.”​​

So if you chose Version A in the self-assessment above, here’s a diagnosis:

You might be too truthful and direct with your marketing. You could benefit by protecting your prospect’s specialness a little more. At the least, don’t bluntly say, “I’ve seen your case a thousand times before. Here’s a cure.”

And if you chose Version B above, you probably have an intuitive understanding of the value of making people feel special.

​​In that case, remember there are simple and easy tactics for making people feel special. But you probably already realized this — since you’re a Type B.

Finally:

Here’s a special offer for you if you guessed A on the test above.

But you say you guessed B instead? How unusual. In that case, here’s a special offer for you also.

Unmasking the real Ellen (and everybody else in your life)

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“Thanks very much. This is exciting, isn’t it? This is really great. I’m happy. You seem like a great crowd. Of course, you never know. Never can tell.”
— Ellen DeGeneres, One Night Stand

A few days ago, I watched a bunch of episodes of One Night Stand. That was the half-hour standup show that ran on HBO in the early 90s.

One of the One Night Stand specials from 1992 was Ellen DeGeneres. I’d never seen her standup before. In fact, I’d never seen her talkshow. I only knew her as the TV “Queen of Nice” who was unmasked as being a bitch in real life.

Whatever. I was surprised I liked Ellen’s 90s standup. Here’s a bit about her going for a mud bath:

“You submerge in mud. You’re naked. They always want you to be naked to be rid of stress. Ever notice that? To me that’s more stressful actually. You’re naked around people you don’t know who are naked… and you have no pockets. You don’t know what to do with your hands. [She does a little pantomime of covering her crotch, crossing her legs, crossing her arms.]”

After watching Ellen’s One Night Stand, I found it very credible that she is not a nice person in real life.

In her comedy special, Ellen is very smiley, blonde, and cute. But she doesn’t hide her snarky, judgmental nature. Or who knows, maybe I’m just reading into it, since I know the stuff that’s been said of her recently. But I don’t think so. Because there’s this general truth:

People are often talking about themselves, regardless of the apparent topic of conversation.

And all you have to do is to be aware of this fact. You can then get a lot of useful information without asking any prying questions. Maybe, if you’re curious, you can even go look over this post and find out things about me. Stuff I didn’t mean to reveal. You never can tell.

Anyways, if you want more advice on figuring out the true nature of your friends, family, and sales prospects, it’s stuff I occasionally talk about in my email newsletter. If you’d like to try that out, and see if you find it entertaining and educational, click here.

The strange story of three girls who became one

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“We can’t go anywhere without each other!” said the first girl.

“It drives us crazy! But we can’t split up no matter what we do!” said the second.

“Can you help us, doctor?” asked the third. “We still want to be friends, but this is too much!”

In 1972, three college girls showed up to a therapist’s office. They were suffering from what psychologists call fused identity. It’s the personality equivalent of leaving a bag of gummy bears in the sun until they all melt together.

The girls were aware of what had happened. They wanted to change. But they couldn’t. So they were seeking help.

“I understand,” said the therapist. “There’s an important first step I want you to take. After that, I can recommend a course of action.”

“Tell us!” said girl one.

“We’ll do anything!” said girls two and three in unison.

“First, I want you to make a list of your planned activities for tomorrow,” the therapist said. “The ones you expect you will do together.”

The girls nodded and did as he asked.

“And then tomorrow,” the therapist said, “it’s extremely important that you do each of these things together, as you just told me you would. Don’t deviate from this plan one bit. You have to be at all of these activities, together. All three of you. Then the day after, come see me again.”

This case was reported in a paper titled, “Dissolution of fused identity in one therapeutic session.” Because one session was all it took. The girls lost interest in spending all their time together… after they were told they HAD to do it.

This is a core part of human existence. Your prospects have it inside them also. They have a problem… they might even want help… but they are repulsed by being told what to do.

So here’s an important first step:

Forget what you just read. And it’s extremely important that the next time you craft a persuasive message, you do NOT think of clever ways to deal with your prospects’ stubborn resistance to outside influence. Particularly if you sell in a really skeptical, jaded market. Then the day after you do that, come and see me again.

The vulnerability myth

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Ron was waiting in his wheelchair, looking up the stairs.

The necklace he had just bought was wrapped up on the table in front of him.

Finally, he saw her.

She was coming down the stairs, laughing and talking to another man.

At the bottom of the stairs, she kissed the man on the lips and grabbed him by the crotch. She then noticed Ron from the corner of her eye.

Ron quietly pulled the wrapped present off the table.

The woman came over. “We get married today?” she chuckled.

“Oh yeah, yeah,” Ron said. “That would be great.” He slumped down in his wheelchair. And he wheeled himself away.

That’s a scene scene from Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July. It’s a fictional look at the real-world horrors that paralyzed Vietnam vet Ron Kovic went through, both during the war and after.

I thought of this scene today when I heard yet another recruiting pitch for the cult of vulnerability. “Wear all your hidden handicaps on your sleeve,” the cult leaders say, “and people will love you for it.”

I want to offer you another point of view. It’s a simple formula:

Charisma = Power + Liking

I read that a long time ago in a book called The Charisma Myth. It’s stuck with me ever since.

It’s why a brutal, undefeated knight makes hearts beat faster with small acts of chivalry…

But why a vulnerable “nice guy” with flowers and gifts gets a pat on the head, at best.

Good news is, there’s a way out.

For example, at the end of the Oliver Stone movie, Ron speaks to a crowd of millions. People hang on to his every word. They absorb his anti-war message. And they applaud and cheer him.

But here’s the crucial point:

This only happens after Ron and a bunch of other vets make a scandal at the Republican National Convention… after they storm the convention hall… and after they get on TV.

So my pitch to you is to work on your power and your authority first.

​​Once you’ve got em in buckets, then bare your stories of self-doubt and failure.

​​People will listen then… they will feel good about following such an effective and yet human leader… and they might even love you for it.

In other news:

I’ve got an email newsletter. Full of effective marketing and copywriting ideas, and occasional personal stories. In case you’d like to sign up, here’s where to go.

They tried to bury this information… but I believe it

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Here’s a sneaky story about the things they don’t want you to know:

Back in 2013, the European Union wanted proof that online piracy hurts sales of movies, books, and computer games. So they had a big study done.

The 300-page study was complete in 2015. It was then used for a second academic paper by two European Commission members, which came out in 2016.

The conclusion of that second paper was that piracy hurts movie sales by about 4.4%. “Our findings have important implications for copyright policy,” said that second paper.

The thing is, nobody ever saw the original 2013 study. It was never published. Not nowhere. Not until 2017.

​​That’s when Julia Reda, the Pirate Party member of the EU Parliament, got her hands on the missing study. And she published the results on her blog.

“With the exception of recently released blockbusters,” the 2013 study said, “there is no evidence to support the idea that online copyright infringement displaces sales.”

Hold on a second…

So was the EU hiding this study… so they could cherry pick results that fit their desired “important implications for copyright policy?”

It sure sounds like it. Sneaky governmentses, right?

But here’s the bigger truth in all this:

I found out about this yesterday. An article about it was published in an online tech news site. It then went viral on a news aggregator.

But this story has been public since 2017… and yet we’re talking about it now, in the middle of 2021. There’s something there.

As you probably know, if a bit of information is scarce, we tend to value it more. “Long-lost study from 2013” piques our curiosity. But maybe not all that much, and not for all that long.

However, if that bit of information was suppressed, we tend to value it much more. “Long-lost study from 2013 that the government worked hard to bury.” That’s something worth discussing even years later.

“Fine,” you might say. “But I kind of knew that already. It sounds like the lead of every health VSL ever.”

All right. But let’s see if you knew this:

Bob Cialdini’s Influence lists a bunch of evidence that censorship doesn’t just increase desire for censored info…

But censorship also increases belief in that information. Even if you don’t actually see the information.

For example, I haven’t read the original EU study about piracy. Come on, it’s 300 pages. Who’s got time?

But I believe the conclusions. Why else would the EU try to censor it? I bet a bunch of people on that news aggregator thought the same, and that’s why this story went viral.

My takeaway for you is this:

Desire and belief are really two sides of the same coin.

Whether you’re using specificity… or a new mechanism… or even secrets… if you juice up one side of the coin, the other side gets bigger too.

And I’ve got evidence to prove it. Evidence nobody has seen before. I hope to publish it one day soon… if they don’t get to me first. If you want to read that secret report when it comes out, here’s our underground communication channel.

Required viewing if you’re interested in persuasion

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In 2011, an Indian spiritual teacher named Sri Kumare set up a new practice in Phoenix, Arizona.

Kumare had a couple of women in tow — one Indian, who acted as his personal assistant, and the other white, who guided Kumare’s meditation and yoga sessions.

These women helped Kumare build up a following in Phoenix quickly. But it’s not clear he really needed their help.

After all, Kumare looked like the perfect embodiment of an Indian guru.

He was tall, gaunt, and had long black hair and a long black beard. He wore flowing robes, held onto a wooden walking stick, and walked with a strange stumbling gait.

And of course, then you heard him speak.

Kumare had a thick Indian accent when he dropped his mystical wisdom such as, “All this… the world… is an illusion,” and, “The guru is inside YOU.”

Plus he stared really intensely at people when he spoke.

One time, a five-year-old boy who had just met Kumare confessed, “I like to play! All the time!”

Kumare stared at the boy. And then he smiled and said shyly in his thick accent, “I like to play… also!”

One of the women who became Kumare’s disciple was a death penalty attorney named Toby.

She fought for the rights of people who had been sentenced to the death penalty and who had lost all their appeals. It was a very stressful and emotionally draining job.

Kumare stared intensely at Toby. “Why… do you want to help those people?” he asked, with no judgment in his voice.

Toby explained how these death row inmates have lost the support of everybody, including their families. They needed somebody to fight for them.

Kumare nodded while continuing to stare at Toby. Later, Toby explained why she started looking to Kumare as her guru:

“When somebody shows interest in what you’re interested in, it makes you want to get to know them better. It makes you want to learn as much as you can.”

This made me think of something I found in my notes from the past month. “The biggest thing you can do for others,” I wrote, “is to like and accept them.”

Now I don’t know if that’s really true. I think we are all a bundle of different needs. At different times, those different needs take turns being uppermost.

But the need to be liked and accepted is definitely up there, and it’s up there a lot of the time.

Anyways, if you know the story of Kumare, then you know how it ends.

But if you do not know the story of Kumare, then I highly recommend watching a documentary made about the man. And I recommend you do it without reading any reviews first.

Because there’s a lot in this movie, and it’s best if you come to it with an open mind.

In fact, there’s so much in this movie that it should be required viewing for anybody interested in persuasion of any kind.

One day, if I ever create the curriculum for my mythical AIDA School, this movie will be part of the first semester, along with Guthy-Renker’s Personal Power infomercial and Chip and Dan Heath’s Made To Stick.

I bet you can find Kumare the documentary on your favorite streaming service. But if you don’t want to search around for it, or if you just want to watch a couple minutes to see if it’s really worth your time, then here’s a grainy copy that somebody posted to YouTube:

A simple way to deal with reactance on the sales page

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A few weeks ago, I was walking through a little park at exactly 11:21am.

I know it was exactly 11:21am because I saw an unusual scene, so I checked the time and wrote it down.

Three local drunks were sitting at a table in the shade. Two empty beer bottles and two empty brandy bottles were in front of each of them.

And now came the time to get the next round.

One of the drunks got up, started collecting the empty bottles, and grumbled, “I’m the oldest one here! And I have to go?” And he did. But he kept mumbling to himself about the injustice of it all.

So at 11:21am, these guys were already four drinks in, and getting a fifth and eighth.

That was the unusual part.

But the elder drunk’s reaction was very usual. “I don’t want to! Why should I?” That’s something we all say every day in some form.

Psychologists call this reactance. It’s as fundamental a human instinct as breathing or wanting to sit when we see a chair.

Reactance says that when we have barriers erected against us, when we lose a freedom, when we’re commanded or manipulated into doing something, we rebel. Fire rises up from our bellies.

If we have no other option, like when the stupid boss tells us to do something, we do what we’re told grudgingly.

But when we have a choice, like on the sales page, we cross our arms, dig our heels in, and say defiantly, “No! I don’t want to! What are you gonna do about it?”

The good news is that there are lots of things you can do to get around reactance in sales talk and sales copy.

I recently wrote about a pretty standard one, which is the reason why. Because people don’t really want control… they want the feeling of control. And sometimes, a reason why is all that’s needed to give them that feeling.

“You gotta get the next round today… because Jerry got it yesterday… and I will get it tomorrow.”

That can work.

But there are other, and much more powerful ways to deal with reactance. In fact, I’m writing a book about one of them now. And if you want to hear more about it, well, you will find it in future issues of my email newsletter.