Why does a giraffe have the longest neck?
The canned answer is because it’s useful. It allows the giraffe to browse books on the top bookshelf.
The real answer is that giraffes love extremes. That’s according to V. S. Ramachandran, a neuroscientist and psychologist at UCSD.
Ramachandran says giraffes, and all other animals, have to know who’s a sexual target and who’s not. Otherwise, they might waste their prime dating years humping couches or human legs or other animals species. (Clearly, something went wrong with dogs.)
So how does a giraffe find love?
The simplest and easiest way it can. It looks for shortcuts.
“Long neck? Gotta be another giraffe! Time to get the cologne.”
But here’s where it gets tricky and interesting:
If a long neck is a mental shortcut for a giraffe to pick out another giraffe… then a longer neck is an even shorter cut.
The conclusion is giraffes’ necks get longer and longer. The longer your neck, the more likely you are to get some giraffe action and pass on your long neck genes. In the end, the longest neck wins.
As I said, giraffes love extremes. Almost as much as humans love extremes.
Because the human brain is like a giraffe’s. We also like shortcuts. And we want to follow these shortcuts to the end. Which leads me to the best copywriting tactic ever:
Go to extremes, whenever you can get away with it.
The most successful direct response copy is filled with the most dramatic stories… the scariest warnings… and with superlatives like fastest, easiest, and best.
The world is complicated. Too many choices. Too much information. That’s why we seek out extremes, to make our lives easier. And that’s something you can use to make your copy not better, but best.
Speaking of which, here’s the safest offer you will ever hear:
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