The Value of the Unexpected

 

Recently a client sent me this interesting little example of the power of the human brain.  First of all read (or try to read) the following:

This is 
                      weird, but interesting! 

If you can raed this, 
                      you have a sgtrane mnid too 

Can you raed 
                      this? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can. 

I 
                      cdnuolt blveiee that I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd what I 
                      was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, 
                      aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it 
                      dseno't mtaetr in what oerdr the ltteres in a word are, 
                      the olny iproamtnt tihng is that the frsit and last ltteer 
                      be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and 
                      you can still raed it whotuit a pboerlm. This is bcuseae 
                      the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but 
                      the word as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas 
                      tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! If you can raed this 
                      forwrad it.

(I’d love to credit the person who wrote this brain exercise, but unfortunately I was not provided with the source for this piece).

I’ve Got a Pattern For That.

Now inside the copy it states that only 55 out of 100 people can read this.  I’m not sure that’s true, because I haven’t found anyone yet who cannot read it – or at least a great deal of it.  They also state that the human mind does not see words as “words” that must be spelled correctly because it only looks at the first and last letters.  Again, I’m not 100% sure that is what’s happening here.  Truth is that the human brain recognizes patterns.  Familiar patterns or symbols – and once it begins to recognize a pattern it assumes it knows how it’s going to go.  For the brain this is a great time saver. It’s learned this symbol – or even something that’s close to that symbol means a specific thing – the fact that the letters are a bit jumbled or one letter doesn’t belong, does not affect it – because it never looked close enough.  It saw a familiar pattern and accepted it as being that pattern.  Especially with words, because words in sentences also form familiar patterns.  The brain is always anticipating what’s happening and looking for familiar patterns to which it can apply a learned response.  Could you imagine how slow things would go if you never learned patterns and had to process every single word or action as though it were a new experience!

What’s This Mean to You as a Writer?

As a copywriter there is a very valuable lesson here.  And it’s based on the fact that the brain anticipates an expected result.  When you’re writing the copy for your ads, if you used tried and true, time-tested, cliché ridden copy – your ad will be ignored!  Why, because the brain of every single listener will anticipate what is coming before it ever happens – and if knows what’s coming it stops paying attention. The human brain is always scanning the horizon looking for the next threat to survival.  It does this with conversations too – listening until it hears exactly what it expects.  At this point attention wanders and starts looking for something more interesting to focus on.

Here’s Your Challenge

You need to write ads in such a way that they are not predictible.  You can do this in many ways, unexpected words, pacing, imagery…one of the most powerful ways is story-telling.  Of course the extra challenge of story-telling is that you not only need to present it in a way that is compelling and drags the listener along – but you actually need a story to tell.  But that’s a story for another time.  What I want to focus on here is the thought that the predictible, the tried and true, the expected in a radio ad is a game killer.  So you always need to be thinking about how you can say something in a way that continually picks at the brain, and keeps it from wandering.  I will give you a small warning though with this approach….don’t be surprised if people say they hate your ads – some will even get angry and abusive. 

Hating Your Ads Can Be Okay

But this is a good thing, because what’s it’s signaling is that they were unable to ignore your commercial.  And strangely enough this actually angers people because our normal response to ads is to ignore them – it’s the conditioned response…and as I stated before the brain is looking for familiar patterns.  An ad is just another pattern…and if you don’t shake the foundations with your writing and production – then the pattern is ignore what you’re listening to – and look for something more interesting to focus on.  Since you’re paying good money for your ads – I doubt this is the response you were looking for.  If it was – then that’s unexpected – and you have my full attention!

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Listen To This

“The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.”

― Ralph G. Nichols

As a writer, especially a writer of advertising, one of the most powerful tools you have to help you improve the quality and effectiveness of the ads you write; is the ability to listen.  That may seem a little counter-intuitive since what you’re trying to do is improve as writer.  But listening can help you in several ways.

The first is way it can help is to give you an idea how real people talk…not the phony conversation you hear in 90 percent of all “conversation style” ads – but real conversation.  This is why one of my biggest pieces of advice to any writer who wants to improve, is to go out into the world – and just listen.  You can do it so easily.  When you’re shopping, going out with friends – in fact anytime you are out in public.  Shut up – and listen to people talk.  But don’t just listen.  Listen carefully and with your full attention.  Try to pick up cues about the way people talk.  I’m willing to bet you’ll notice people speak in incomplete sentences, run-on sentences and often incomplete thoughts.

The 2^nd thing you can pick from just listening, are some golden idea generators.  Truthfully, people say the darndest things – some of them truly brilliant.  Interesting and unusual turns of phrase, regional expressions and just plain unique thoughts that would be absolutely brilliant included in an ad.  They ring true with the listener because they are true – and they are most often not ad-speak so they stand out. 

But don’t trust your memory to record all these little gems of truth --- take a little pad of paper with you, or use one of the many apps that help you save notes on your cell.  I like to think I have a really good memory, but I know there are numerable times when I’ve been somewhere and heard a real gem of conversation – and thought “I’ve got to remember that one”…but I didn’t.  Who knows what great chances I lost to write ads that resonate and persuade – simply because I didn’t have a way to save those ideas for future use. 

  When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.”

― Ernest Hemingway

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What is All This Wizard Stuff?

When I was first introduced to the Wizard of Ads, the books and his academy, I had an eerie feeling this was something like a cult. (Which I understand others have felt – and I also hears gives the folks behind the phenomenal Wizard Academy a chuckle every time they hear someone else say it.)

The station owner/sales manager that I worked for at the time had become completely enamoured with the teachings from the first 2 books, and had himself become a quasi-disciple of the teachings (later he would go on to become much more than that).

I wasn’t actually at the radio station when the majority of the fervour around Roy Williams first occurred, as I was in a hospital having major surgery to reconstruct my hips (that’s a really long story, maybe for another time).  I heard about what was happening from the fringes, which only made it seem more unusual as people told me about ads with Suessing, shades of Claude Monet and in the style of the images of Robert Franck. 

But once I had done my rehab from surgery and returned to work, I was hit full in the face with this thing called the Wizard of Ads and stories from the Wizard Academy in Austin Texas.  Even though I knew nothing about him or his style of business marketing – I was asked to try to emulate his style of ad writing, simply by watching a few videos from one of his seminars, and reading the 2^nd book “Secret Formula's of The Wizard Of Ads”.  Now I was convinced this was a cult!

Still, since it seemed to be a condition of continued employment – so I did my best to understand and my boss did his best to get me (and others around the station) to understand the many benefits to be gleaned from his methods.  I have to admit in retrospect, my first attempts were pretty bad.  I just did not understand what I was being told --- quite frankly it was so different than anything else I had ever been taught or experienced – I mean writing ads like poetry or by describing the hinted reality of Claude Monet – that’s crazy stuff!

It wasn’t until I actually attended the Wizard Academy in Austin that I really began a journey towards the truth.  This was not, as I had wrongly concluded, a cult.  What it is, is a place created to teach those who are truly interested in building and improving their business – or in the case of radio marketers – helping those you work with to improve their business by teaching you what works in a hypersensitive, media savvy world.

For me it was an eye-opening experience.  One that’s still affecting me to this day and has quite frankly changed my views on how to write ads.  I used to believe the best way to achieve success was to entertain. Comedy, sound effects and unusual voices or situations were my tools.

Today I am fully focused on how I can make the best, most persuasive ad for any business I’m lucky enough to write for. For the most part the window dressing I used to rely on has been sent to the sidelines or refocused for different purposes. Sometimes the businesses I create ads for listen to my advice – and sometimes they don’t. 

 If you are currently in radio marketing, run a business or just plain interested in marketing I suggest you subscribe to and start reading the Monday Morning Memo from the Wizard of Ads.

These days I read these memo’s, both present and past, to bathe myself in words of relevance and reminder.  For I am surrounded by those who strive not to offend -- and have no stomach for, or interest in true persuasion.  This is how I keep myself sane, and striving for the day I can finally do what I know, with every ounce of my being, is correct. 

And it is why I feel such dread for the future and survival of radio. It seems to me that the days when people did powerful things with radio are so far in the rear view mirror as to be rendered invisible.  These days everything in homogenized and pasteurised, every minute detail is worried and fretted so as to assure that no one is offended.

 Of course the reality is that while everyone has been focused on how to make things “safe”, they’ve failed to notice that people stopped caring what they were doing and lost interest in what they had to say.  Making what I do for a career so much harder. 

If you’re interested in learning more about how to write ads that work in today’s media/hype savvy world, when so much of what was before has begun to fail – I suggest you read the following 2 Memo’s from Roy Williams.

http://www.mondaymorningmemo.com/newsletters/read/1565

http://www.mondaymorningmemo.com/newsletters/read/1894

But before you do that I would also suggest you subscribe to the Monday Morning Memo at http://www.mondaymorningmemo.com .  Every week you will get a shot of wisdom sent directly to your email.  Sometimes it’s very focused on marketing, sometimes it isn’t – but I can that it is always interesting and thought provoking. 

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Just Make Me Laugh Ad Boy

I used to think that radio ads with comedy -- were great ads.

I felt that way before I went to college to study Radio, and when I left I was absolutely sure of it.  It seems to me those were the ads we studied, and the ones that when written by us, always garnered the most praise from our instructors.  Now I’m not saying that’s what they taught me – I expect that I heard what I wanted to hear – and I wanted to hear that ads with outrageous comedy were the way to go. 

So when I got my first writing job, my goal was to write stupendous comedy ads.  Sure I had to do my best to write “great” ads for a lot of “sale” copy ads – and straight forward event ads, but every now and then I was able to write some ads that I was certain were comedy gold!  And that’s where my pride of accomplishment lay.  I saved every one of them that made it air – convinced that one day they would be my key to success, fame and fortune.

Of course these days I would have to admit that the ads of my first few years, were not going to deliver me to any promised land.  For the most part they were laced with naivete and poor structure.  To my defence, I was really raw.  And I did not know any better.  Besides I seemed to get compliments when my ads were funny.

However like my ability to write ads has improved over the years, my aptitude to discern what constitutes a good, effective ad has also sharpened.  And these days I play a lot less with comedy in my ads.  You see I’ve discovered what people like Roy Williams said about comedy is true – it really is nytro glycerin.

It can easily blow up in your face if it’s not handled with extreme care. 

Entertaining (comic) ads can work, if there’s a direct connection between entertainment and the one thought you’re trying to plant in the minds of shoppers. In far too many ads the entertainment is not relevant to the advertising message.

Chuck McKay (http://fishingforcustomers.com/)

Not only is that point true – but everyone has a different sense of humour, and what you find funny, may not be funny to someone else.  But the main reason that humour fails to work most often in radio ads is simple – as stated by Chuck McKay -- the comedy has little or nothing to do with the main point of the ad.  It’s humour for humour’s sake. 

A lot of times it seems that the joke is written first, and then the idea the marketer wants to get across is slipped into the middle of the joke/scenario because they had to do it.  And when the ad is done, you’ve found the ad very funny, but for some reason you can’t remember who it was for – or what point they were trying to make. It’s actually interesting to hear people talk about the ads they really love and discover just how often people can not remember the name of the client who paid for the ad!

I’ve gotta tell you, if it was my money on the line – I’d want to be extra sure they remembered who picked up the tab and why I bought the ads in the first place – a whole lot more than they remembered the joke! 

So my basic advice to you as a young writer or an inexperienced radio advertiser would be to stay as far away from comedy in your ads as possible.  I’d urge you to spend a greater amount of your time trying to find that thing that you do that solves a problem everyone listening to your ads has. 

They (the listeners) may love your comedy ad – but if they don’t buy your product and help to keep the doors to your business open, then really what was the point.  Unless of course you just wanted to add a little comedy to the lives of those around you, and you don’t care if anyone knows you were the one who paid for it.  

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In Celebration of Specificity

“If you say that there are elephants flying in the sky, people are not going to believe you. But if you say that there are four hundred and twenty-five elephants flying in the sky, people will probably believe you.”  --  Gabriel Marquez

Yes, specifics are more believable than generalities.

Even when they're true.

Remember this, and you will write far more effective ads.

- Roy H. Williams

Last year I was asked to write an ad about March Break at one of those new mall complexes – you know the ones – they have a bunch of box stores with smaller retailers and restaurants clustered around them like baby ducks trying to stay warm cuddling close to mommy on a cold, rain-soaked day. 

Unfortunately, the only information I was given to write this ad was their name, an address locationer and the fact that there a bunch of restuarants (only some of which were family style restaurants), a gym, an indoor mini golf location and a complex of movie theatres.  I was then told to make this an ad about how this a good place to take the kids for March Break. 

After getting frustrated at being given only basic information – information that in no way answered the listeners question “Why should I care?”, but still expected to deliver miracles…I realized had no choice but to try – so I hauled out my copywriters tool box and dusted of my advertising magic kit, and set to work.

In the end I came up with an ad that was just a notch above ordinary, by trying to appeal to parents, using language they could identify with and focusing on the frustration of hearing the words “I’m bored” from their prodgeny. 

In the end, it wasn’t a bad, basic commercial. But it could be so much better.  How?  Glad you asked.

Specifics.  Plain and simple, if I had some specific information the ad could have become so much more compelling. What kind of specific information?  Well I happen to know that many theatres offer daily matinees with popular kids movies over March Break.  And that many of these matinees start around noon and offer reduced prices.

 

If I could have inserted that information into the ad, information that would have added a wealth of specifics to the ad.  It would have allowed me to paint a picture of “you (the parent) answering the question “I’m bored – what can I do?”, in a very specific way, that could have caused you to envision yourself packing the little darlings in to the car – going to this box-movie complex.  Taking in a movie, and lunch at one of the kids favourite – specific – restaurants.

 "We create failure when we pretend creativity can overcome the fact that the advertiser has nothing to say."
- Roy H. Williams, The Wizard of Ads

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect to win any awards with this ad – but I do expect it will illicit a stronger response from the listeners, because the ad now at least offers an answer to the most important question – why should I care.  Because if you have kids and you’re looking for something to do with them outside of the house over March Break – especially if you’re looking for something less expensive – then at least you now have some specific information to consider. 

In the first ad there is nothing compelling – no true offer.  It’s really just a message that says – hey we’re here and our name is _________. 

So remember, if you want to take your ad from ignorable and predictable to greater, more effective heights, then ad some specifics.  

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Thinking about Ad Speak

I’ve been thinking lately about “Ad Speak”. You know those predictable words that seem to litter every single commercial like a garbage truck with it’s back doors wide open.  Words like “super”, “fantastic”, “unique”, “limited time offer”, “hurry, act now” etc…the kind of words that worked in ads in the 60’s and 70’s -- and now instantly signal listeners to shut down and go into “ignore mode”.

More specifically what I’ve been tossing around my brain is the thought that slogans and sell lines might have become Ad Speak…joining all those other cliché ridden phrases.

Blah, blah, blah.

I know personally when I hear someone spouting a slogan or a "cutsie" sell line my reaction is to think “blah, blah’blah”.  And personally I’m finding them harder and harder to write as well.  Everything seems to have been done before – and what’s even worse the majority these days seem hollow and insincere.

I guess that right there should be the key thought, that in fact most have indeed joined the ranks of the Ad Speak Army.  Or perhaps it’s just that we’re not being creative enough with them.

Maybe they sound like Ad Speak because they are often tacked on to the end of ads.  Having no relation to the commercial that just proceeded them.  Or you hear them in a list of sponsors at the end of a ball game. You know the preceeding was brought to you by “so and so company – insert slogan here.  It’s kind of a throw away.

Do you recall?

I know that’s not what they’re designed to do – they’re meant to offer recall -- like if I said “The Real Thing”.  You’d know that’s Coke.  Even if you had not been paying attention to the ad, you’d still know you heard something about Coke.

But aside from a shining few examples, I’m beginning to think we should just avoid them completely – or find a way to redesign them.  I’m not sure exactly how that should work yet.  But I’ll keep thinking about it myself.  What about you – any thoughts or ideas?

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It’s All A Matter of Brain Chemistry.

People say they aren’t susceptible to advertising – and that “branding” doesn’t work on them. The folks at McDonalds would beg to differ.  And so would I. 

Did you know that after years of conditioning – you no longer need to actually eat at McDonalds, or experience anything that gives you pleasure to actually get the rewards of those pleasures in your brain.  Check out this except from a recent article on the blog at “Psychology Today” (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/you-illuminated/201108/7-things-mcdonald-s-knows-about-your-brain)

The brain's reward chemical is dopamine, a molecule that's released when you experience something you enjoy.  However, one of the brilliant aspects of the brain is its ability to learn and make predictions about the world based on past experiences.  When the brain learns that a certain cue is associated with a reward, dopamine neurons learn to fire whenever the cue appears, even before the reward is given.   Dopamine does more than simply reward you; it also motivates you to seek the pleasure again.  As soon as you see the cue, your brain begins to anticipate the reward.  The anticipation is part of the pleasure.

In simple language it would appear from this study, that in fact you actually don’t need to experience a pleasurable product or service in order to get the rush that comes from filling that desire.  Perhaps this is why people become shopaholics, or addicted to junk food.

From an advertising standpoint, I would say this study suggests that people do not really need to be having an experience to get the rush of having it. They just need to have had the experience once before – then the mere suggestion of that experience sets the brain a workin”!

Seems to me, this also suggests radio ads that paint a picture, that give the listener a virtual experience are also going to have the same effect.  And it sheds new light on something that Roy Williams from the Wizard Academy says; “no one will do something they have not imagined themselves doing”.

So what does all this mean to your radio ads.  Story ads, that make people feel what it’s like to experience your product or service, or clearly demonstrate a problem and a solution will have a powerful impact on the listener.  Want proof – just think for a second about the sinful pleasure of chowing down on some McDonalds fries.  It would appear that mere thought is enough to get your brain’s chemistry working…and may be all it takes to get you to a McDonalds to satisfy that craving. 

You know as I think about – this is probably why all I have to do is have someone mention they went out for Chinese food, or smell it --- and I want it….very badly! 

So you can say that advertising and branding do not work – but your brain and it’s magical chemistry seem to disagree with that assertion.  Just a little food for thought.  (And yes – I know that is a terrible attempt at humour!)

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