Direct Response Marketing Copy & Strategy
What has four legs, a long nose, two large ears, and a tail, and is immovable?
Could five blind men work together to answer that question?
Early in December of 2017, I saw the elephant in the room. I mean, I think I did.
I was an hour into Derek DelGaudio’s show about identity in the small Daryl Roth theater in Manhattan. Continue reading “In and Of Itself with Derek DelGauido”
#toys #toddlers #brains #freewill #theuplifter #synaesthesia #identity Continue reading “Persuasion Articles of the Week”
We choose help people that we like, people that make us happy.
We like people that are similar to ourselves. People that remind us of our best attributes.
Therefor, if we want to be persuasive, we must be likable.
As humans, we mirror one another’s behavior. We reciprocate emotions and we reciprocate favors.
To be persuasive, you Continue reading “Building Rapport for Fun and Profit”
I decided long ago that I like Coca Cola products.
First, I enjoyed the flavor of Coke. That sweet, sweet fizz… Soon I “liked” everything the company produced. I advocated for Coca-Cola products of all varieties, even the ones I didn’t drink!
By extension, I decided I didn’t like Coke’s rivals. I avoided them, to match my new public identity.
Cognitive science has demonstrated that once someone publicly announces a position on a topic, that person rarely changes his mind. Any new evidence or challenge against that believe will backfire, causing the believer to dig in deeper.
Think about it — how many arguments have you really won? People almost never change their minds! Continue reading “Three Types of Liking: People Liking Brands (Part 2)”
Identity is a major influencer in our lives. People identify with their in-group and exclude the out-group.
You’ve probably heard of Jane Elliott’s experiment with school children. In the 1960s, she instructed her students to treat other kids differently based on their eye color. The moment the in-groups and out-groups was defined, the kids treated their friends completely different.
Sport teams define identity for many people. Continue reading “Identity on the Baseball Field”
I see a lot of my friends and family scared with Trump in the Oval Office. Within a year, he went from a clown that many dismissed to the President of the United States. Among my friends, I see suffering and confusion. I hear their stories of protest and anger, fear and sadness.
Social Media, such as Facebook and Twitter, are great tools for reaching a lot of people… right? Yes, but often new information only reaches those already in agreement.
Social Media sites like Facebook use complex computer software to filter and sort headlines and posts. Do you like the White Sox? You’ll get stories about the White Sox. This software ensures that most people get news that interests them — including headlines and ‘evidence’ that match their current preferences and worldviews. Facebook’s role is to engage you (and show you ads), not to challenge your belief structure.
When every headline you see supports your existing belief structure, of course the other side of a political argument is going to be ‘wrong’ — everyone is working from a different set of ‘facts!’
If you tried converting anyone to your preferred presidential candidate using Facebook, you probably made more enemies than converts.
There are two likely scenarios here.
If you tried to introduce new information to your discussion, it was probably overwhelmed by the existing information on the other side, and lead to cognitive dissonance. When someone confronts an uncomfortable idea, they’ll rationalize it away, ignore it, or refuse it. They want to remain internally consistent with their belief structure. People don’t like to disagree with their former selves.
If that new information did make it into your conversation, it possibly made things worse. Rather than an objective look at a situation when new information comes to light, people will often dig in deeper to their currently-held positions. They want to be seen as socially consistent. Being labeled a “flip-flopper” in light of new evidence is portrayed as a bad quality in presidential politics. People are publicly tied to their identity. They won’t easily give that up.
Social Media filters prevent people from seeing the same information you see. This has been the case for years now. Our nation is growing apart because of it.
Any attempt to sway others by highlighting news stories probably never made in front of their eyes. If it did, they dismissed it outright.
Anything that contradicted someone’s existing beliefs probably caused them to dig in deeper.
People don’t want to think.