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!

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mlcastle/2727749953/">mlcastle</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">cc</a>