There once was a rich and evil king,
a beautiful and fair princess,
and a handsome and strong prince:
Last time, we discovered our minds don’t always view reality correctly. It also uses false logic: because day is followed by night, day causes night.
Our minds make their conclusions based on how constantly things are usually connected together. When one thing dependably follows another, it’s a habit of the mind that A causes B.
The more desperate a person’s situation, the more that person will accept such illogical conclusions. You saw this in the “proof” a religious organization uses to promote consistent giving (called tithes) to the church in order to receive from the universe:
Falsehood #1: The great monopolists John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie tithed. Therefore, their wealth was caused by tithes. (False: they gave after they built their wealth, just like monopolist Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have done.)
Falsehood #2: A businessman tithes $15 to his church. Soon after, his bank informs him his saving account earned $15 in interest income. Therefore, his giving created the income. (False: the giving did not create the receiving any more than if that man killed a sacrificial chicken that morning on the way to work, then received interest income that afternoon.)
Whether tithing is or is not a spiritual truth is not at issue. Whether the mind fools itself is the issue. And the mind does.
“Let me tell you the story of William Wallace:”
Stories are fun. Stories are entertaining. Stories can make the dullest product come alive when it’s put into a story and has a role to play.
We all remember details better of those events we can incorporate into a narrative account: stories, songs, and dances.
(You’ll recognize these are the basis of culture and history.)
We explain what’s happening in the world — social phenomena — by explaining people’s actions of why they’re doing what they’re doing by incorporating it into a story.
The best explanation is a story.
And in marketing, they’re especially powerful – beyond the obvious reason that they can be interesting and engaging.
Why? When you hear a story, you don’t ask if the explanation is true or false. Instead, you ask if it’s credible or reasonable that matches with the kinds of experiences the rest of us had. Stories sidestep the whole issue whether it’s true or not! (“I don’t know if what you told me is true or not, but it sounds reasonable. Put me down for an order of 200.”)
You can’t be William Wallace:
“William Wallace is 7 feet tall!”
“Yes I have heard, he kills men by the hundreds
and if he were here he’d consume the English
with fire bolts from his eyes
and bolts of lightning from his arse.”
Stories are especially powerful with complex events (and give rise to myths). That means you can create an entire narrative — back-story, current situation, and the future – to build an aura or presence that grows by itself over time. It gets passed along (or even goes vertically viral).
Drawbacks to stories:
Let’s Play “Telephone” and
“Fill in the Memory Blanks”
Information gets distorted as it’s passed along as rumor or in any other form. If you ever played the Telephone Game in school — by hearing a whispered message change, you saw how a simple message like:
“Meet me at the corner of Polk at Vine at 3 this afternoon” turns into:
“Meat, Miata, and corn robbed, poked, and fined by 3p.m.”
How does this happen?
All of us, including our customers we communicate with, use what psychologists call “constructive memory” to fill in the gaps in a story or narrative we’re recalling. We fill in the right content in order to fill in the narrative.
“I’ll swear on a stack of Bibles, your Honor:
There were books in that photo …”
For example, you look at an old black-and-white photo of a famous author’s room. You see a chair, desk, typewriter, and a bookcase without any books.
One week later, you recall seeing a chair, typewriter with paper in it, pens and pencils in a cup on the desk, an ashtray filled with cigarette butts, a half-full bottle of scotch, and a bookcase filled with books.
We fill in the gaps to complete the story.
TODAY’S TIP: Two weeks ago, you learned it takes 20 repetitions for your audience to learn your message, and just a few from time to time to help them remember.
If you want your customers to remember your story or myth, retell the story from time to time. (I do this at the bottoms of my emails from time to time.) Otherwise, they will fill in the memory gaps with whatever works for them. Which might not work for you, William Wallace.
NEXT TIME: We review the psychology of using repetition effectively … put it together in a simple 319-word strategy … and put all of that with these last five posts into a free PDF you can download.
AFTER THAT: We take a quick peek at what we really see and experience … give you some tips for using psychology to harness peculiar human behavior profitably … revisit Eternal Marketing’s social engineering in understanding peer groups and peer pressure … then focus on psychology applied to the online world.
Find out next time as we continue to chart the underlying currents of psychology, sociology, and economics that flow together as marketing.
In DEEP MARKETING.
Have questions, comments, thoughts, and opinions?
I’ll answer them directly and promptly:
1. Share them below
2. Send to me privately if you prefer privacy (bill@rippermarketing.com)
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