The Simpsons

I got a hot date tonight HONK

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Yeah, about my hot date… I’ll get to that in a second.

First, here’s a scene from the animated TV show The Simpsons. The scene illustrates a valuable/funny point about influence. But hold on.

I grew up watching The Simpsons. If you didn’t, that’s no problem. You don’t need to like The Simpsons or even to have ever seen a single episode to get what this scene is about, or to understand the underlying point.

Scene:

Moe the bartender is being interrogated by the police for shooting the local billionaire, Mr. Burns.

Moe is hooked up to a lie detector machine. He’s asked if he ever held a grudge against Mr. Burns. He answers no. But the lie detector machine HONKS to indicate he’s lying.

“All right,” Moe says. “Maybe I did. But I didn’t shoot him!” Sure enough, the lie detector machine DINGS to confirm Moe’s statement as true.

“Checks out,” says the cop. “Ok sir, you’re free to go.”

So far, so conventional. But then, Moe executes the following rapid-fire descent into humiliation, to the sounds of the lie detector machine:

“Good,” he says. “Cause I got a hot date tonight!” HONK

“A date.” HONK

“Dinner with Fred.” HONK

“Dinner alone.” HONK

“Watching TV alone!” HONK

“All right!!!” Moe says. “I’m gonna sit at home and ogle the ladies in the Victoria’s Secret catalogue!” HONK

Moe hangs his head. “Sears catalogue.” DING

“Now would you unhook this already please! I don’t deserve this kind of shabby treatment!” HONK

That’s the end of the scene. Maybe you found it funny even in my transcript above. But if you didn’t, trust me that it’s funny in the original version.

The question is… why?

Is it just funny to find out Moe is a loser? That’s part of it. But would it have been as funny if the scene simply went:

“Good. Cause I got a hot date tonight!” HONK

[Moe hangs head] “Actually, I’m gonna sit at home and ogle the ladies in the Sears catalogue.” DING

My contention is no. That wouldn’t be nearly as funny. Which brings me to the following valuable point that I promised you:

“We build interest by adding more: more movement, more color, more sound, more light, more people, more intensity, more concentration, more excitement. In short, anything whatever that the spectators regard as increasing will also increase their interest.”

That comes from a book about magic and showmanship. In other words, the above advice about adding more is how expert magicians build the audience’s interest.

But it works the same for comedy.

And in fact, it works the same for copywriting.

Stack a bunch of moderately interesting, or funny, or insightful stuff on top of each other… and the effect is multiplicative, not additive.

And with that punchline, we conclude today’s episode. DING

But if by any chance you want more simple tips on building interest and desire in your readers, you can find that here:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

Bejako the email clown

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About a week ago, I sent out an email about a budding email copywriter who made me an offer I could refuse. I got the following reply to that email:

Honest feedback.

This email does not sound like your personal voice.

There’s a uniqueness in the way you phrase things and keeps me reading. I sense a difference in this email. I don’t know if this an earlier version of you.

I sat there for a moment, staring at this reply, tilting my head from side to side like a confused beagle.

What exactly was the intent behind this reply? What was I to do with this honest feedback?

I never did figure it out.

But I’ll tell you what I will not do.

I won’t go through my “budding email copywriter” email, figuring out where my tone of voice went wrong. I also won’t go through other emails, reverse-engineering what a proper Bejako email sounds like. And I certainly won’t poll my readers and say, “Please tell me what you like about my online persona, so I can give you more of what you like, and less of what you dislike.”

I recently discovered the term flanderization.

On The Simpsons, the character of Ned Flanders went from being a good neighbor, who served as a foil to Homer Simpson, to being an annoying religious fundamentalist.

​​In other words, Flanders became more and more of a one-dimensional caricature of himself over the course of the many seasons of The Simpsons.

It’s not just The Simpsons. The same thing happens with other shows and other characters, including those that people play in email newsletters like this one.

I’ve often written that I’m in it for the long game with this newsletter.

That’s why my prime directive is to make writing these emails fun and interesting for me personally.

But painting myself into a corner of what I can and cannot say — because not it wouldn’t be in line my tone of voice or online persona — well, that’s neither fun nor interesting for me. I’d rather be free to say what I want to say, when I want to say it, even if it makes me sound off-brand on certain days, and like a clown on others.

Anyways, this probably doesn’t benefit you in any way. Not unless have an online presence, or are planning to start one.

But if you are putting some aspect of yourself out there regularly, maybe my perspective on it can be helpful to you somehow.

And here’s something else that might be helpful, at least if you are interested in copywriting, marketing, and persuasion.

The mysterious, two-pronged power of teasing

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A few weeks ago, I found myself at a restaurant staring at a fat kid.

He was sitting in the corner, picking his nose, and playing a racing game on his tablet. It was uncanny. He was as close to Nelson from The Simpsons as I’ve ever seen a kid in real life, including the two-tone ha-ha laugh he kept repeating.

My dinner partner, a healthier and more rooted person than I am, thought the kid was great. “Look at how much energy he has! So full of life!” All evening long, he kept calling Nelson to our table, pinching him, tickling him, teasing him. Of course, Nelson loved it.

Ha-ha!

I’ve long wondered why teasing works so well.

Playfully accuse somebody. Push them away. Even jokingly insult them. And odds are, they will love you for it.

I don’t have a good mental model for why that is. It remains mysterious to me, even when I end up teasing people or getting teased myself.

The curious thing is, in English at least, we use same word for a completely other kind of behavior, one I understand better.

I’m talking about stringing somebody along for a while, leading them by the nose, revealing bits and pieces but not giving the whole thing away.

This second kind of teasing is equally as powerful as the first kind. As copywriter Dan Ferrari wrote:

19) One of the most powerful tools in marketing is the tease. It could be as “small” as 2-3 lines of copy that build up a reveal. It could be as “large” as dangling a new product release in front of existing customers FOR MONTHS (<—do this often and you’ll be able fly private to Hawaii to thank me personally).

This was part of an email Dan sent out a few days ago.

Dan doesn’t email a lot. But he’s sure to do so at least once a year.

Each year, on his birthday, Dan sends out X direct marketing lessons to match his X years on the earth. He just turned 37 and so he shared 37 lessons.

Maybe you knew that already. Maybe you missed out.

If you did miss out, then let me tell you Dan’s birthday emails generally include no illustrations. Only valuable insights.

I’ve found they merit reading and rereading. I sometimes come to a smart conclusion, and only then realize that it’s something Dan had written years earlier in one of these emails. It finally make sense.

The thing is, Dan doesn’t post his emails anywhere publicly. And if you want to sign up for his email list, so you get any future emails he sends, whether for his next birthday or sooner, well, even that’s a problem. His optin page wasn’t working when I last checked it.

It might be worth checking again now. Or tomorrow. Or in a few months’ time. How’s that for a tease? Here’s the link in case you’re intrigued:

http://www.ferrarimedia.com/new/

A VSL lead idea from the Harmon Brothers Agora ad

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I watched the Harmon Brothers Agora video today.

​​You might know what I’m talking about. It’s a humorous, viral-style video by the same people who made the one for Purple Mattress — except this one is selling an Agora stock-picking service.

This video is deadpan because it moves so quickly. I counted 17 jokes — visual, verbal, and physical – in the first 60 seconds alone. That’s a joke every 3.5 seconds, and I might have missed some.

When I first saw this video, I thought it was mostly a ripoff of Will Farrell movies. But I now realize it’s actually inspired by The Simpsons, which had the same rapidfire sequence of jokes.

​​Each joke might not be spectacular in itself. But the jokes are staggered in such quick fashion and edited so tightly that your brain starts to play along.

Unfortunately, the type of humor in the Harmon Brothers video is hard to replicate in writing. Instead, this might be a good way to write a lead, particularly for a VSL in gotta-wow-em markets like bizopp or weight loss. Here’s the recipe:

Take everything you want to say, all your promises, open loops, proof, objections and rebuttals, and write an obnoxiously long lead. Don’t be shy. Then boil it down through merciless editing by at least 10%, preferably much, much more.

The resulting copy will have so much momentum, that even if none of your individual claims or promises is all that unique or impressive or believable, you will simply blitz your reader’s brain into sticking with you through the first few minutes. And that, as they say is, 50% of the battle.

For more rapidfire copy ideas, you might like my daily email newsletter. If you’re interested, sign up here.