Gary Halbert

Just coz it’s science don’t mean it’s true.

I’m currently reading Chip and Dan Heath’s Made to Stick. This brotherly tome teaches you how to present your ideas in a way that sticks in people’s minds — long after you’ve made your pitch.

Overall, I am digging this book.

But there’s one section that irked me when I read it. Somewhere along chapter 4 or so, the Heaths talk about how to make people really “hear” your message. How to get them emotionally invested. How to get them to care.

Of course, you can appeal to their self-interest, which is what direct response copywriters like myself love to do.

But no, say the Heaths.

That’s short sighted, and there’s science to prove it. So they cite research where people are asked to explain what would motivate them to take a new job:

Option 1: more security because the new position is so important

Option 2: more visibility because the new position is so important

Option 3: the great learning opportunity this important new position would provide

Apparently, most people choose 3 when explaining why they themselves would choose a new job. But when asked what they think other people would be motivated by, they choose options 1 or 2. (Short-sighted buggers, those other people.)

So the Heath brothers draw this conclusion, referring to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:

In other words, a lot of us think everyone else is living in Maslow’s basement — we may have a penthouse apartment, but everyone else is living below. The result of spending too much time in Maslow’s basement is that we may overlook lots of opportunities to motivate people.

To which I’d say, “Interesting… But do you prefer going to the movies or to the theater?” It’s a question the grandpapa of modern-day direct marketing, Gary Halbert, asked once:

Once I asked at class at USC how many of them preferred to go to plays more than movies.

Lots of people raised their hands.

“Bull!” I said to them. “You are all fooling yourselves and I’m going to prove it.” I then asked for a show of hands of those people who had seen a play in the last week or so.

No hands.

I then asked to see the hands of people who had seen a movie in the last week or so.

Many hands.

Does this mean you always have to appeal to brute self-interest when trying to convince people? Not necessarily. This ad certainly doesn’t seem to:

MEN WANTED
for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition in case of success.

This was an ad put out by Sir Ernest Shackleton, a polar explorer, and it supposedly drew an enormous response of men interested in accompanying Shackleton into the penguin-infested waters of Antarctica.

The point of all this?

Maslow’s basement can work.

So can Maslow’s penthouse.

But talk is cheap, and what people say is not necessarily what they will do. Even if they themselves wholeheartedly believe it.

So when choosing which appeal to go with in an advertisement, look at what people actually do, rather than what they say they want.