Psychology Behind Advertising

Stop daydreaming for once and read this

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Listen up you dreamer:

One day back in 1999, after Gordon Ramsay opened his first restaurant, he got a tableful of famous visitors.

There was Joan Collins of Dynasty fame. Then model Nicola Formby. And finally A.A. Gill, the food critic for The Sunday Times.

But Gill had earlier written a nasty review of Ramsay’s restaurant.

So Ramsay left his kitchen, walked over to the table, and kicked the whole group out.

Speaking later, an emotional A.A. Gill said:

“He seems to be a classic bully. Somebody who will overreact to people beneath him. And then feel terribly aggrieved when somebody he doesn’t have innate power over criticizes him.”

Sounds about right, yeah?

Ramsay is famous for his outbursts. (“Will he be able to control it?” asks the breathless TV teaser.)

He yells. He insults. He curses.

“Yes, Gordon,” his humbled staff reply, eyes on the floor.

​​And that’s my takeaway for you today.

A while ago, I made a brain dump of ideas on the topic of “natural authority.” What do people who have inborn charisma seem to share?

One of the things on my list was that they target the weak. You know. The poor, the friendless, the tax collectors and sinners.

Because as powerful as natural authority is, it won’t work reliably on a healthy, stable person without any gaping emotional wounds.

But the insight I learned recently, through Mike Mandel and Chris Thompson, is that people with natural authority can create emotional wounds. On demand.

One way is just what Gordon Ramsay does. Insults, humiliation, browbeating. Not all the time. But enough that there’s always a risk of it.

And here’s my addition to this theory:

I believe that a “temper,” as TV calls it, is not only a means to natural authority. It’s also a signal of it.

In other words, you don’t have to get personally insulted by a would-be leader in order for his authority to rise in your eyes. It’s enough to see it happen to somebody else. For example, to an emotional food critic, getting kicked out, while a restaurant full of people watches.

That’s why as a society, we love people like Ramsay. Sure, it’s both horrifying and entertaining to watch others getting cowed and humiliated. But it also feeds our need to look to a charismatic leader.

And by the way:
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You can see the same in various corners of the online guru and influencer world.

​​Now that you know this, you can choose to use it yourself — or at least be aware of what’s happening in your own head, when you witness others using it.

One last thing:

Sign up to my email list.

What are you standing there and looking for? You dreamer. Click the link already and sign up.

Watching the birth of a new belief

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My point today is not to stir up outrage. That’s because I myself don’t like outrage, even though it’s good for business.

But I find the following flip-flop story fascinating. It shows how a new belief is born, although at a mass mind level. And I think this can help you when you write copy.

So here goes, from today’s Axios World newsletter:

“President Biden ordered the U.S. intelligence community on Wednesday to ‘redouble their efforts’ to determine whether COVID-19 first emerged from a laboratory in Wuhan or through animal-to-human transmission.”

Redouble their efforts, huh?

That’s surprising. Because as you might remember, a year ago, there was exactly zero chance coronavirus came from a lab. Why exactly zero chance? Because scientists agreed. A few headlines from February and March 2020:

Financial Times: “Coronavirus was not genetically engineered in a Wuhan lab, says expert”

USA Today: “Fact check: Coronavirus not man-made or engineered but its origin remains unclear”

Science: “Scientists ‘strongly condemn’ rumors and conspiracy theories about origin of coronavirus outbreak”

Ok, on to human psychology. Here are a few things I believe to be true:

1. Individual human beliefs are driven by deep needs we are mostly not aware of

2. Beliefs are a mental shortcut for a complex underlying situation that we can’t keep in our heads

3. At the surface level, beliefs are summarized and justified by logical sound bites

Phew, that was boring, right? Because all that stuff I just told you is really abstract. You can’t really “see” it.

Our brains aren’t good at seeing how brains themselves work.

Fortunately, we can look at the mass mind.

It’s not a perfect proxy for individual human brains. But it can still be useful. Plus it’s so big and so slow-moving, allowing us more insight.

And that’s why I’m telling you about this corona story.

A year ago, there were certain underlying needs in the world. I’m not sure what they were, but they demanded the belief that corona is not lab-made. As a result, facts were found to support this belief, and only sound bites like the above headlines bubbled up to the surface. A belief was born.

Today, it sure sounds like the underlying needs have changed. And now the mass mind wants to believe, for whatever reason, in the lab-made origin, or at least its strong possibility.

So we are redoubling efforts to find facts to support this belief. And since the world is very complex, we’re sure to be successful. In fact, just now, I came across the following article by Matt Yglesias:

“The media’s lab leak fiasco: A huge fuckup, with perhaps not-so-huge policy stakes”

So that’s why I’m saying this can help you with copywriting. Because when you write copy, your real work is playing with those deep-down, hidden needs. You can give people logical sound bites, and it might help your case, but only when the right underlying conditions are there.

And maybe this corona origin story can make that real for you, can allow you to see it, so you can truly believe it.

That said, if you are interested in the strange politics of corona origins, here’s the article that put this whole topic on my radar. In case this beliefs-in-the-mass-mind stuff turns you on, take a look:

https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/

I like you and here’s why

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I mean it. I like you. I will tell you why, but first, let me tell you what just happened to me:

I called an Uber to go from one end of town to the other. I waited on the curb. And when the Uber came, he drove right by me.

He then stopped in the middle of the road and put on his hazard lights.

What to do? I dodged traffic to get to the middle of the road. But as I was nearing the Uber, he drove off.

I watched him drive down the block and turn the corner. I then dodged traffic again and got back on the curb.

What to do, a second time? I followed down the block and around the corner.

Fortunately, the driver had pulled over. I managed to catch him and get in.

“It’s my first day on the job,” he said.

We took off, but his GPS was completely out of whack. It told us to go in the opposite direction from where we were headed.

The driver claimed to know the city but he didn’t. So I gave him directions, in between listening to his stories from the last regional war, a topic I am not fond of hearing about.

After a half hour of this, we made it to my destination. And it turned out the driver had never started the ride inside his Uber app.

That’s why the GPS was completely messed up.

It also meant he wouldn’t get paid. He seemed bewildered and nonplussed.

​​”Take it easy,” I said, “we’ll solve it.” ​​So I walked him through canceling the ride in the app. And I pulled out my wallet and gave him cash, even though I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t already be charged in some way for the ride.​​
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So the question becomes:

​Why help this guy out, in spite of the hassles and discomfort he put me through, instead of just bolting from the car and saying, “Thanks and good luck!”​

One option of course is that I’m just a kind and decent person. But knowing myself as I do… well, let’s look for alternate explanations.

A second option was the guy’s disarming helplessness. There is something to wanting to help people who are extremely unokay.

But there’s a third option, too.

Because as we were nearing the end of our trip, the Uber driver told me:

“I’m glad I met you. Not just as a customer, but as a person. I feel I could learn a lot from you.” This I guess was his response to my keeping intelligently silent while he talked the whole way.

The fact is, we all respond to flattery. Even when there’s little or no basis for it.

Car salesman Joe Girard, who sold an average of 5 cars a day and holds the Guinness World Record for the sellingest car salesman, sent out postcards to his customers every month.

​​The occasion to each mailing would be different — Christmas, National Bath Safety Month, Valentine’s Day. But each month, the message would always be the same 3 words:

I like you.

Of course, while flattery works, it’s even better if you compliment somebody earnestly. So let me repeat I like you and tell you that, while I don’t know much about you, I can infer a few good things with confidence.

Such as that you’re interested in improving yourself, learning, and developing your skills. And that you’re willing to read to do it. And that you’re probably interested in writing too, or creating content rather than just consuming it. All these are good qualities, and ones I’m trying to develop also.

So that’s it. No pitch. But if you do want to stay in touch with me, one option is to sign up to my daily email un-newsletter.

Why gamification fails (and how to use this to create fanatically loyal customers)

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Here’s a riddle for you from the book review I shared yesterday:

You might remember the gamification craze from the beginning of this decade. App creators were convinced that adding badges, randomness, and leveling up to any activity would make it irresistible.

​​And yet, despite following a lot of the same strategies that gambling machine designers did, those app creators never did create an army of self-improvement addicts.

​​If designers optimized gambling machines for addictiveness, why can’t they do the same for these apps? If bad machines can be made addictive, then why can’t good machines?

The anonymous author of the book review gives a few possible answers. But he or she is not happy with any of them.

I don’t know the answer either. But I can tell you the answer to a related riddle, which goes like this:

Why do hazing rituals for college fraternities never involve anything useful or positive?

You know the rituals I’m talking about. A college freshman wants to get into a fraternity. So he’s given a beating by his future fraternity brothers… he’s told to spend the night outside in freezing weather wearing nothing but a loincloth… and he’s forced to eat a pound of raw beef liver.

If he survives all this, he gets into the fraternity.

But why exactly those nasty and humiliating tasks? Why not combine the humiliating with the useful?

Why don’t fraternities make new recruits wash some train station toilets… or change the adult diapers of incontinent senior citizens… or collect litter from the side of a highway on a sweltering August day?

The answer, according to slot machine designer Robert Cialdini, is this:

“They want to make the men own what they have done. No excuses, no ways out are allowed.”

Cialdini claims that the point of hazing rituals is to make new recruits fanatical about their new fraternity membership, once they achieve it.

Hazing rituals work brilliantly for this goal. But there’s a catch:

The ritual tasks HAVE to be pointless.

Otherwise a new member can convince himself that some other good came out of all that humiliation and pain… which takes away from the value of the fraternity.

In other words, whenever we do something because of added motives — whether positive or negative — we don’t end up owning that behavior fully. We don’t make it a part of our identity.

And that I think can be a good answer to why slot machines are so addicting… while your Duo Lingo app is not.

Of course, I also think this ties into running a business. Even though it’s at odds with much direct response wisdom.

I think you can use this insight to create fanatically loyal customers… as opposed to customers who abandon you and forget you at the first turn in the road. Which is exactly what happens to most direct response businesses.

To me, it seems the application is obvious… but if it’s not, sign up for my email newsletter. It’s a topic I might discuss more in the future… or I might not.

A harmless but effective trick used for decades by the most daring and successful copywriters in the world

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I did everything they told me to do.

I snuck around at night, posting bandit signs, hoping nobody would see me… I spent hours driving around, searching for junky abandoned houses… I went into places of business and, when nobody was looking, because it’s embarrassing, I put fliers on bulletin boards.

You know… all the methods that are supposed to work. Except they didn’t.

That’s a bit from a VSL I wrote last year in the real estate investing space. It’s a typical story — I tried all the usual stuff, it was confusing and humiliating and got me nowhere… then I hit upon something new and different.

Typical. What’s not typical is the guy who was telling this story:

He is a bona fide Green Beret.

​​He served in the U.S. Army Special Forces for 10 years in Afghanistan and Iraq and various classified locations. Then he got out of the army, and worked as a firefighter for a while. Then he decided to make money. So he started investing in real estate and spun off a bunch of businesses and became a multi-millionaire.

But at the start, as he told me, he was confused and unsuccessful and ashamed.

A Green Beret! Confused and ashamed!

Is it any wonder you feel the same?

The fact is, people in almost any direct response market feel shame, whether openly or deep down. How else can they respond to having a burning problem… which they’ve failed to solve, over and over?

If you’re writing copy, there are several ways you can deal with this. The weakest is to tell people, “It’s not your fault.” Fortunately, better options exist.

One is to have a real-life action hero tell you, “It was the same for me. Here, let me take you under my wing and show you what really works.”

This does two things. First, it calms that burning sense of “must be something uniquely wrong with me.” Second, it allows the reader to tap into a new source of pride. Hey! I’m now in this inner circle with a real-life commando!

And in case you’re wondering if this really works:

This VSL increased response 3x over the control. In all fairness, a part of that impressive result was the flimsiness of the control. But a part of it was capitalizing on this guy’s action-hero status and his early struggles with real estate.

“Great,” you might say. “All I need now is a sensitive and vulnerable Green Beret. Thanks for nothing.”

Hold on. No Green Beret… no problem. Take a look at this John Carlton bullet:

* Amazing trick that instantly eliminates “performance anxiety” in men! (Used for centuries by the most daring and successful lovers in the world… see page 112.)

It’s the same damn thing as above. The only difference is… who are these daring and successful lovers?

Well, the book John was selling gives a few case studies of guys who overcame performance flop.

Are they the most daring and successful lovers in the world?

Perhaps.

Or perhaps John was burning with shame at how vanilla his bullet was… so he resorted to a bit of puffery to create mystery and intrigue.

It’s a harmless but effective trick… and if it’s good enough for a legendary and super-rich copywriter like John, well…

In case you want more shame-reducing copy tactics, particularly around the topic of real estate investing, here’s a tip.

I write a daily email newsletter. Marketing, persuasion, copywriting, that kind of thing. If you’re interested, here’s where to sign up.

Cialdini’s limited hangout

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In chapter 3 of Influence, Robert Cialdini tells the interesting story of a transcendental meditation event he went to.

Cialdini was at the event to study the recruiting methods of the TM organization. He was sitting in the audience with a friend, a professor of statistics and symbolic logic.

The TM presentation started out talking about inner peace and better sleep. But it got progressively weirder and more outlandish. Cialdini says that, by the end, the TM gurus were promising to teach you how to fly through walls.

Eventually, Cialdini’s rational and scientific friend couldn’t take it any more. He stood up, spoke to the whole room, and “gently but surely demolished the presentation.” He showed how the presentation was illogical, contradictory, and groundless.

The TM gurus on stage fell silent. They hung their heads and admitted that Cialdini’s friend raised really good points, and they would have to look deeply into this.

So whaddya think happened? If you’ve read my recent posts about Frank Abagnale and Uri Geller, you probably know exactly what happened:

Once the TM presentation ended, people in the audience rushed to the back of the room. They handed over their money to sign up for TM bootcamps and workshops.

Did they not hear Cialdini’s friend dismantle the whole TM gimmick? Or were they just too dumb to understand what he was saying?

Nope. Neither. They heard him, and they understood perfectly what he was saying. That’s why they were so eager to jump aboard the slow-moving TM train.

“Well, I wasn’t going to put down any money tonight,” said one future TM’er when pressed later by Cialdini. “I’m really quite broke right now. I was going to wait until the next meeting. But when your buddy started talking, I knew I’d better give them my money now, or I’d go home and start thinking about what he said and never sign up.”

I read this story a few days ago. And I was thinking about how you could use this quirk of human nature for intentional marketing. And then, yesterday, I ran across the term limited hangout.

Limited hangout is apparently a term used by politicians’ aides and CIA operatives. It’s when you cover up the full extent of a scandal or secret by an early reveal of some of the damaging stuff. By letting it hang out. Not all of it, of course.

An example of this was Richard Nixon and company’s attempt to cover up how high Watergate went. They were planning to do a “modified limited hangout” and release a report with a lot of damaging information. Of course not implicating the president.

It didn’t work for Nixon. Too little, too late. But apparently limited hangout has worked in lots of other cases.

The thing is, everybody who writes about limited hangout says it is an example of misdirection… or gullibility… or short attention spans.

Perhaps. But perhaps the effectiveness of the limited hangout technique is just what Cialdini writes about.

When we believe something, then information to the contrary actually drives us towards that something. I will leave it at that, and let you use this dangerous material as you see fit.

And on that note:

I’m not sure if you have a strong desire to hear from me again on similar persuasion topics. If you do, I have to tell you that I often write about borderline immoral tactics. Plus there’s no guarantee that any of them will work for you. If that doesn’t deter you, here’s how you can make sure to hear more of my ideas.

“Worse is better” marketing

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A-list copywriter Carline Anglade Cole doesn’t put a lot of effort into many of her email subject lines. On Thursdays, she sends out an email with the subject line “Carline’s Copy Thought.” Tuesdays are “Trade $ecret$ Tuesdays,” and Fridays are “Flashback Fridays.” And the next week, it all repeats.

Mark Ford, the multimillionaire copywriter and marketer who helped make Agora a billion-dollar company, went through a period where each email he sent out had the same one-word subject line. “Today.” That was it. Over and over.

Is this just a shocking example of laziness that top marketers practice when promoting their own stuff?

Or…

Could it be a case of “worse is better”? Where doing less gets you better results than doing more?

Well consider this. I always open Mark Ford’s emails, even if they say “Today” for the 10th day in a row.

On the other hand…

Today I got an email from an A-list copywriter. I won’t name him, but I’ll tell you I often open his emails. But I didn’t open his email today. I read the subject line and I said, “Oh, I know where this is going. I don’t need to read it.”

The fact is this:

Even people who are perfect prospects for what you’re selling will often dismiss your message instantly. They will use any little excuse to say, “No no, this is not for me, not now.” Even if your offer could hugely benefit them. Even if it’s exactly what they need.

Why are people like this? I don’t know. My guess is it has something to do with why taking out the trash is so hard.

Of course, one way to deal with this is the usual direct response light show, with flashing neon promises and blaring warning sirens.

But if you’ve got enough credibility with your audience, then you can do what Carline and Mark do. And you might actually get better results. And if you’re not convinced yet that “worse is better” can get you better results, let me give you an example with some hard numbers:

Marketer Rich Schefren once offered an upsell he called “Mystery Box.” Once you bought Rich’s front-end product, a video popped up with Rich holding this box and saying something like,

“Do you trust me? I promise you that what’s inside this box is worth 100x the $49 price I’m asking for it. Get it today and see for yourself, and if you don’t agree with me, you can always get your money back.”

Rich says his typical upsell converts at around 30%-40%. The mystery box? No excuses to say no? That converted at 75%.

​​Twice the sales. For less effort. Might be worth a try in your business as well.

And since you’ve read this far, let me ask you a question:

Do you trust me? I promise you that the free offer that’s waiting at this link is worth 100x the price I’m asking for it. Try it today and see for yourself, and if you don’t agree, you can always get your entire investment back.

Rejection-then-retreat in negotiation, pick up, and sales funnels

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Would you do me a favor real quick? It’s going to be painless and won’t cost you a cent:

​​Would you go on Amazon right now and leave a review for my book The 10 Commandments of A-list Copywriters? It doesn’t matter if you’ve read the book or not.

I’m waiting.

What, you’re still here?

No review for me?

That’s too bad. I’m a little saddened to be honest. But then please at least read this article to the end.

I myself have been re-reading Robert Cialdini’s Influence for the past several days. And since I’m a slow reader, I’ve only gotten as far as Chapter 2, Reciprocity.

You know what reciprocity is. It’s when you do somebody a favor… and that way you oblige them to do you a favor in turn. It’s a standard technique of grifters, conmen, and Hare Krishna devotees, because it works even if you force a favor on the other person.

I remembered that much about Cialdini’s book. But I forgot about the other kind of reciprocity Cialdini describes.

Cialdini calls this other method rejection-then-retreat. That’s when, rather than forcing a favor, you force a concession.

It’s simple to do:

You start out with a big first ask. When that’s rejected, you back off to what you really wanted all along. You’ve made a concession… now it’s the other guy’s turn.

Very devious. Very clever. And very familiar, when you think about it.

It’s the standard way people negotiate. “$10k? Oh no, absolutely not. This Miata is worth at least $22k. But I guess I could let it go for 18… 14? No, you’ve gotta be kidding me. 17 and that’s my final offer. 16? Deal.”

It’s also a standard gambit for pickup artists. I won’t give you the salacious details here. You can use your own imagination.

And finally, rejection-and-retreat is in play in every modern sales funnel, which features a front-end offer, some upsells, and inevitably, downsells if you don’t take the upsell:

“All right, so you don’t want the incredibly valuable lifetime subscription to Cat & Mouse Stockpicking Alerts for only $4,999. Will you at least accept a 2-year subscription, for only $387?”

And since you’ve read my post to the end, let me tell you this:

This reciprocity stuff is powerful. Do it right, and you can really manipulate people, even against their own interest. But beware.

Reciprocity is a perfect example of what I wrote about a couple days ago. It’s a technique that can wear out quick if you abuse it. And when it wears out, you won’t just lose that one-time sale. You will also lose the chance to do business with that person, probably for life.

Oh, and if you think I’ve done you any kind of a favor by exposing you to this devious rejection-then retreat stuff… then you know how to repay me. I have an email newsletter. Consider signing up for it. And if you decide you want to, here’s where to go.

Your first step to achieving natural authority

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I’ve got three quotes about celebrities for you, and then I will tell you about a hack. A hack to make you be seen as a natural-born leader — or at least a necessary ingredient for it.

But first, the quotes.

Quote 1:

“Patton believed that it was critical for a general to stand out and to be seen by his troops, a philosophy that conveniently coincided with his ego. He dressed impeccably in a colourful uniform and knee-high boots, sporting ivory-handled pistols.”

Quote 2:

“Long before ‘mumblecore’ became a film genre, critics complained about Brando’s speech patterns until it finally became clear they were an integral part of his performances.”

Quote 3:

“Prince’s handwriting was beautiful, with a fluidity that suggested it poured out of him almost involuntarily. It also verged on illegible. Even in longhand, he wrote in his signature style, an idiosyncratic precursor of textspeak that he’d perfected back in the eighties: ‘Eye’ for ‘I,” ‘U’ for ‘you,” ‘R’ for ‘are.'”

A few days ago, I started thinking about natural authority.

What makes it so that some people just seem imbued with the royal farr? So that they command obedience or respect or awe, even if they aren’t wearing a uniform… or standing on stage in front of an adoring crowd… or climbing alone, without ropes, up a 3,000-foot cliff of sheer rock?

Well, I wrote down a bunch of ideas. If you like, I’ll share them all with you in time.

Today I’ll just tell you about one. You can see it illustrated in the quotes above.

Got it? It’s just this:

Patton, Brando, and Prince all had a unique style. In some ways, a style completely beyond the pale of what was normal or acceptable.

In one case (Brando), it was probably inborn, or at least unconscious.

In another (Patton), it was clearly cultivated.

In the last (Prince), it was a bit of both.

So that’s your first step to natural authority, should you want that position in other people’s minds.

Maybe you already have your own inborn style. In that case, emphasize it.

Maybe you don’t. Then you can consciously build it.

And style can be anything. How you talk, how you write, how you dress, how you walk, how you spell. Some of them, or all. Whatever your audience can see. And maybe even stuff they can’t, because it’s somehow still likely to shine through.

It might not instantly make you a star or a king or queen. But like I said, I think it’s a necessary ingredient, at least in some form. So you might as well thinking about it now, while I write up the emails about the other bits you’ll need.

Emails? Yes, emails. I write a daily email newsletter. If you’d like to sign up for it, here’s where to go.

Screaming in terror at a loss of supreme intelligence

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John von Neumann was probably the smartest person of the 20th century. He didn’t have Einstein’s hair or the dopey absent-minded scientist look. That’s perhaps why he never became the icon like Einstein.

But according to friends and colleagues (a smart bunch made up of past and future Nobel laureates), von Neumann was the sharpest of them all. Eugene Wigner, who won the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics, said of Von Neumann, “Only he was fully awake.”

I first read about von Neumann in a textbook for a math class. There were little sidebars about the giants of the field, and von Neumann was in there. A few bits of von Neumann’s life story, as told in that sidebar, have stuck with me for years:

* While von Neumann was a kid, his parents would get him to perform mental tricks at parties they hosted. ​​A guest would randomly choose a page of the phone book. Little 6-year-old Jancsi would look at the page for a few moments. And then he could answer any question about who had what phone number and what phone number had who.

* Unlike most of his physicist and mathematician colleagues, von Neumann was a sociable animal. He liked loud music, drinking, and partying.

* Probably due to his work on building the first atom bomb, von Neumann developed cancer at age 52. The disease progressed quickly and he died a few months after he was diagnosed. And in those last few months, von Neumann’s mental powers started to lapse. Colleagues could hear him screaming in terror at the loss.

Here’s what gets me:

Even with an advanced stage of cancer, I’m sure von Neuman’s brain was still a few standard deviations ahead of the rest of us. And yet it didn’t matter.

Because it’s never really about what you’ve got. Only change matters. Positive change is nice. Negative change is terrifying. It’s feeling the ground give way under you as you’re sucked into a sinkhole.

I’m not sure what my point is today. I certainly don’t think that harping on real or possible loss is the best way to lead off a message. People have heard it too much and they’ve become wary.

But if you want to really understand the people in your market… their motivations… their hesitations… then you’ll have to look at their loss, or their fear of loss. Of health, of money, or even of perceived intelligence.

Speaking of which:

Have you thought about another day passing, without learning anything new to make you better at making sales and persuading people of your value? Pretty terrifying, isn’t it?

There’s an easy fix though. Each day I write a short new email, with a marketing or copywriting lesson, wrapped up in some kind of story. Not always as depressing as today’s. If you want to try out those emails and see if they soothe your sense of dread, click here and fill out the form.