“And the copy writer does not create the desire of millions of women all over America to lose weight; but he can channel that desire onto a particular product, and make its owner a millionaire.”
— Gene Schwartz, Breakthrough Advertising
This past January, I sent out an email in which I told the story of how I magically “manifested” a lost license plate from my car.
The point of that email was that, in spite of being a very skeptical and critical person at times, I am also incredibly attracted to the possibility of real magic.
That’s why I often engage in wishful-magical thinking.
And that’s why I’ve repeatedly had “magical” things happen in my life.
Today, I want to give you an update on that — some theory of what real magic is. You might find this theory personally inspiring, or you might even find it useful in your own marketing.
The theory comes from an article I read today, titled When Magic Was Real. The article was written by the very interesting Alexander Macris on his Contemplations on the Tree of Woe Substack channel.
In the article, Macris cites the results of a parapsychology experiment:
60 people were split into four groups. Each group was either given chocolate blessed by a priest or ordinary, zero-blessing chocolate.
In addition, each group was told (truly or falsely) that their chocolate was either blessed or unblessed.
In other words, each of the four groups had a different combination of (belief in blessedness) x (actual blessedness) of the chocolate they were eating.
The experiment ran for a week. Participants were tested for effects on their mood.
So what do you think happened?
Did actual blessing create real benefits?
Or did belief in the blessing — aka the placebo effect — create real benefits?
Or was there no effect at all?
It turns out there was an effect. But the result might surprise you:
The only group that had a significant improvement in mood was the group that 1) got the truly blessed chocolate and that 2) was told that the chocolate was blessed.
Yes, this experiment might be bogus. But if like me, you are attracted to the possibility of miracles and magic, then just run with it for a moment.
Based on this experiment, Macris puts forward his theory:
“Magic is the product of belief x belief. It’s the product of my belief that I’ve blessed chocolate and your belief that you’ve eaten chocolate I blessed. And these beliefs must both be positive. If I don’t believe, it won’t work, even if you are a true believer. If you don’t believe, it won’t work, even if I’m a true believer. Belief x zero is zero.”
True? Who knows. But if it is true, I figure it has a couple consequences:
First, you gotta believe, and you gotta surround yourself with other gullible, uncritical people who are willing to believe without bothering to look closely at the evidence.
Your combined success, including the number of real miracles you experience, depends on it.
Second, rather than trying to persuade the people in your audience that your 28-day flat-belly challenge is really transformative, it might be better to make them believe in magic, in possibility, in miracles.
In other words, the ancient marketing dogma that it’s impossible or impractical to create desire is short-sighted, at least if you are trying to create real results for your customers — and to create customers who love to buy from you over and over.
So instead of just channeling existing desire onto your product, like Gene Schwartz says above, it might be better to focus on making your audience more inspired and motivated and hopeful in general.
Maybe you have your doubts. That’s fine. Don’t make up your mind now. Let the idea marinate there for a while.
Maybe you too will come to believe in believing. Our joint success hinges on it.
Anyways, on a mainly unrelated point:
Yesterday, I had the launch of my Most Valuable Postcard.
I magically got what I wanted, my first 20 subscribers, spread out across 11 countries.
I then closed down the order page, because 20 subscribers is all I wanted to start.
But I had people try to sign up afterwards (no-go) and even ask whether I have a waiting list.
Well I do now.
I’m not sure when or if will reopen the Most Valuable Postcard to new subscribers. But if I do, it will be a limited number of spots again.
So if you want to get a chance to be the first to sign up, then get on my regular mailing list here. And when you get my welcome email, hit reply and let me know you’d like to be added to the MVP waiting list as well.