In a small town bar, a drunk farmer pushed his way through the crowd and got in the face of a meek and proper-looking man.
“You sent that tornado that leveled my house,” the farmer roared as he grabbed the meek guy by the lapels. “Now you’re gonna pay for that!”
A flash of panic spread across the other guy’s face. He threw a glance to the door. No bouncer to help.
So in another flash, this meek man changed his panicked face into a convincing scowl. And he grabbed the farmer by the lapels in turn.
“Yeah, that’s right about the tornado!” yelled the previously meek man. “And I’ll tell you something else! I’ll send another one if you don’t back off!”
Which the farmer did. “Hey buddy… take it easy! I was just kidding…”
You might know this true-life anecdote because Robert Cialdini used it in his book Influence.
The meek guy at the bar was a local TV station weatherman. Cialdini used the story to illustrate the power of association, which hounds weathermen with threats, insults, and occasional beatings whenever the weather they announce turns bad.
Yeah, that’s right about association. And I’ll tell you something else:
This same anecdote is also a great illustration of another social phenomenon, the power of agree-and-amplify.
In many situations, when somebody’s angry, upset, or riled up, the worst thing you can do is to try to calm him. Instead, it often works much better to agree with what he’s saying, and to push him further into the negative.
It’s like pushing the rug out from under him. Yes, pushing. Because instead of having a firm piece of ground to stand and fight on, your adversary finds he’s moving away from you. And so his natural instinct becomes to give up his spot, and to take a few steps back towards you.
Which might be interesting if you’re meek by nature and you ever find people attacking you, expecting you to buckle.
But what about copywriting?
Would you ever want to use agree-and-amplify in your copy?
I would say no, not as I just described it above. But this agree-and-amplify stuff connects in my mind to a copywriting and marketing topic I wrote about recently. This other tactic allows you to take something negative, and use it in your favor, even in your copy. In case you’re curious:
https://bejakovic.com/a-transparent-but-effective-marketing-ploy-thanks-jay-abraham