Gratuitous sorcery and incantations from actual Wizards.

Norman Rockwell was an illustrator of fiction.

He never showed us America as it really was, but America as it could have been, should have been, might have been. His images caused an entire generation to vividly remember experiences we never had.

Rockwell showed my generation a fictional America and we believed in it.

I don’t want to mention client names and I’m sure you’ll understand why, but my most successful ad campaigns have been built on exactly that kind of fiction.

Not lies. Fiction. There’s a difference.

Fiction is romanticized reality, showing us possible futures and the best of the past, leaving out the dreary, the mundane and the forgettable. It is a powerful tool of bonding. Properly used, fictional characters attract new customers and deepen customer loyalties. But predictable characters hold no interest for us. It is conflicted characters – those with vulnerabilities, weaknesses and flaws – that fascinate us immensely.

A recently published study¹ in The Journal of Social and Personal Relationships suggests that fictional friends may be as valuable as “real” friends, particularly when life-partners watch television shows together.

“…our studies show that sharing the social connections provided by TV shows and movies can deepen intimacy and closeness. Furthermore, watching TV shows and movies together may provide couples who lack access to a shared social network of real-world friends with an alternate means of establishing this shared social identity.

Previously, sharing a social world with a partner has been conceptualized in terms of sharing real-world social experiences.² However, creating these experiences may not always be possible. Fortunately, humans are remarkably flexible in finding ways to fulfill their social needs.³ When people’s need for social connections are undermined, they turn to a variety of social surrogates that provide alternate pathways to meet this need, including comfort food,⁴ photos of loved ones,⁵ pets,⁶ and media like TV shows and movies.⁷“

Recurrent characters in advertising fit into that last category of “media like TV shows and movies.”

In fact, fictional characters shine so brightly in our minds that we have created a word – metafiction⁸ – for those moments when fictional characters become aware that they are fictional.

If you doubt what I say, all you need do is suggest to Indiana Beagle that he isn’t real. You will quickly and painfully be made aware of how real a fictional character can become.

It is the architecture of our brains that makes fiction so powerful.

Humans are the storytelling animal.

You have about 100,000 times more synapses in your brain than sensory receptors in your body. If brain synapses were strictly equal to sensory receptors – which they are not – this would mean that you and I are 100,000 times better equipped to experience a world that does not exist than a world that does. So let’s assume that a single sensory receptor is worth 1,000 brain synapses. Congratulations, you’re still 100 times better equipped to experience a world that does not exist than a world that does.

This was the purpose of today’s Monday Morning Memo:

1. Find some TV shows to watch with your life-partner. The shared experience will be good for both of you.
2. Play with the idea of creating a fictional spokes-character for your company. (If you don’t know how, consider the online classes at AmericanSmallBusiness.org.)
3. Take quality fiction more seriously. Logical, sequential, deductive reasoning is a function of analytical thought, which has its headquarters in the left hemisphere of your brain. Loosely speaking, the left hemisphere of your brain is there to connect you to the world that is, while the right hemisphere connects you to worlds that could be, should be, might be, ought to be… someday. This is where fiction comes alive.

Want to hear something funny? The right hemisphere of your brain doesn’t know right from wrong or fact from fiction. That’s the left brain’s job.

Our belief in fiction is made possible only by the amazing right hemisphere of our brains.

Regardless of whether you believe in natural selection (evolution) as the origin of the species, or intelligent design (God), the wordless, intuitive right hemisphere of your brain is there for a reason.

Don’t diminish it. Don’t disparage it. Don’t try to overcome it.

It’s there for a reason.

Let it do its work.

Book a call with Ryan Chute of Wizard of Ads®, and let's create those mind-blowing ads.  

Science is the study of objective reality.
Art is the study of subjective reality.

Subjective reality is perception through filters. It is interpreted reality, romanticized reality, imagined reality. It is your own personal fiction.

We’ve spoken of this before, but I think we need a refresher:
Electromagnetic waves exist regardless of whether you perceive them. They are nonfiction. But colors exist in subjective reality, as a result of transformations provided by our senses. Colors are fiction.

Vibrations traveling in air or water are objective, real, nonfiction. But sound is a fiction that exists only in our mind.

Likewise, chemicals dissolved in air or water exist in objective reality, nonfiction. But smells and tastes are purely subjective, fiction. Colors, sounds, smells and tastes do not exist, as such, outside our brains. And any associations we experience in connection with a color, sound, taste or smell are purely subjective as well.

Each of us lives in a private world that is mostly subjective fiction.

Our ability to communicate is based on the assumption that other people will interpret subjective stimuli in ways that are similar to our own. But when their reactions spring from different backgrounds and experiences, communication grows more difficult.

Politics, anyone?

Color, sound, smell and taste are very convincing fictions. So convincing, in fact, that we often embrace them as “reality.” This is why we have so many arguments.

To “frame” a conversation is to set the stage for a fiction that is about to begin.

The current style of communication in America is declarative and descriptive, leaving little room for nuance or multilayered interpretation. The impact of this declarative style is often clinical and bombastic.

The heart doubts declarative statements because they tell us what to think and believe.

Evocative statements pull the answers from inside us.

Lead a person to an answer and they will usually discover it.
Lead a person to the truth and they will cling to it.

We own every truth that comes from inside us. This is why it is rare for an argument to overturn something we have realized.

If you followed Indiana Beagle down the rabbit hole last week, you saw a statement by Brandon Sanderson, “The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.”

Sanderson may as well have been talking about evocative statements.

Look at the frontispiece of The Wizard of Ads and you’ll see The Seven Laws of the Advertising Universe.  Laws 3 and 7 explain why stories are so powerfully persuasive:

“Intellect and Emotion are partners who do not speak the same language. The intellect finds logic to justify what the emotions have decided. Win the hearts of the people, their minds will follow.”

“Engage the Imagination, then take it where you will. Where the mind has repeatedly journeyed, the body will surely follow. People go only to places they have already been in their minds.”

Well-told stories win the heart and take people on journeys in their minds.

How well are you telling your stories?

The best stories have a narrative arc and a character arc.

Narrative Arc: a sequence of events that unfold; a continuing storyline that fascinates the mind.

Character Arc: a gradual deepening of our understanding of the character’s motivations, revealed by how the character thinks, speaks, acts and sees the world. The character arc is a character’s inner journey over the course of the story.

An advertising campaign is more than a series of ads.

A good campaign has a narrative arc that engages the mind of the customer, revealing layer after layer of information about your company, your product, your service.

A good campaign has a character arc that entangles the heart of the customer by allowing them to feel they understand why you do the things you do.

Does your company have an ad campaign, or have you just been running a series of ads?

Book a call with Ryan Chute of Wizard of Ads®, and we’ll hook you up.

Do you sell a product or service that is reassuringly expensive?

Ronny is selling $700 vacuum cleaners through a direct-response television campaign he created after attending, “How to Sell Upscale Products and Services” at Wizard Academy.

That ad campaign began as a $100,000 experiment.

Ronny told me he’s currently spending nearly a million dollars a week on national advertising and making a marvelous return on his investment.

Funny thing: we teach that class under the assumption the techniques will be used by brand builders, not direct response marketers. But Ronny proved those same techniques can also work when you have a short time horizon.

We taught Ronny something.
He taught us something in return.

Direct response marketers usually sell products that have a short purchase cycle. They want us to make an impulse purchase. This is why the return-on-investment for direct response ads can be measured accurately and immediately.

But not everything can be sold that way.

Brand builders are companies whose products or services have a long purchase cycle. The goal of a brand builder is to be the provider you think of immediately and feel the best about when you finally need what they sell. It takes courage, confidence and patience but it works better and better the longer you invest in it.

The essence of brand building is emotional bonding.

Direct response marketing, on the other hand, is typically intellectual. Features and benefits and added value, “But wait! Order now and you’ll also receive…” It is that world of product demonstrations and money-back guarantees, limited-time offers and upsell incentives.

Direct response ads don’t work better and better as time goes by. They work less and less well until you finally have to come up with something altogether new and different.

Right now you’re thinking, “But hey, if I make enough money on my direct response campaign, I’ll just retire and live happily ever after.”

That sounds like a good plan but I’ve never actually seen it work out that way. Most of us have the fundamental inability to quit while we’re ahead.

A glittering city in Nevada is proof of it.

Wizard Academy teaches powerful concepts.
How you use them is entirely up to you.

Ronny is winning and winning big. I like him.

He’s already taught me one lesson.

I’m hoping he will teach me another.

To learn more about how we can help you, book a call with Ryan Chute of Wizard of Ads® today.

You bought it for 50 cents.
You sold it for a dollar.
You made 50 cents.

What was your percentage of profit?

You could say “100 percent” because the 50-cent profit you made is equal to your original investment of 50 cents.

But if we look at it from the basis of your selling price, you sold it for a dollar and only 50% of that was profit.

So did you make 100% or was it 50%? There is a valid argument for each perspective.

It’s not my intention to lecture you today about the difference between markup and margin or to fill your ears with chatter about inventory turn or the concept of zero marginal cost.

We’re talking about something bigger.
We’re talking about your success.

Profit is easy to identify, but tricky to measure.

Success is like that, too.

Does your pursuit of success ever make you feel like you’re chasing your shadow with the sun at your back; no matter how fast you run, you can never quite grasp it? Is success a forever carrot-on-a-stick, just a little further away than the length of your arm?

Most of us live with the hope of accomplishing a series of goals, but rarely do I meet anyone who can tell me how they plan to measure their progress toward those goals.

How will you measure success?

Before you can answer that question clearly, you have to recognize that success comes in three different colors.

You can make money.
You can make a name.
You can make a difference.

If you make enough money, it will make you something of a name. But whether or not you ever make a difference is an entirely different question. Many successful people keep their money and their name clamped tightly within their fists.

If you make a name for yourself, money will likely follow. But will you then care enough about others to try and make a difference in their lives?

My advice to you is to first make a difference. Do what you do so very well that people take notice of it and speak highly of you. The money will quickly follow.

What are you trying to make happen?
How will you measure progress-to-goal?
In what way will you make a difference?

Book a call with Ryan Chute of Wizard of Ads®, and we’ll hook you up.

There are many interesting ways to measure results. Some people like to get unique identifying telephone numbers or create branded URLs that redirect to landing pages or the website. However, much of this is a waste of time and energy as it never tells the true story of the brand journey and how it affected the decision-making process.

Other indicators of brand effectiveness include tracking total lead volume, new customers, reactivated customers, or running a brand equity survey to get a sense of your share of mind. 

Digitally you will see direct search increase, which cannot be affected by anything digital, as well as branded keyword inquiries increase. You’ll, of course, need to get your digital people to add these to your campaigns if you hope to see an increase in conversions. This will translate into lower CPC (especially branded campaigns), higher ROI, and ROAS. 

More cryptic, but equally true measures will show up in increased appointment and sales conversion rates, higher average tickets, and more profitable revenue. This is because the people have already formed at least a partial positive opinion of you leading to a higher value prospect opportunity. 

Wizard of Ads® for Services tracks the simplest of indicators. Top line revenue. When your branding takes effect, and the company responds in kind from the phone call or form fill-on, top-line revenue will increase. As time goes on and all sales and marketing channels continue to align deeper, profitable scale is inevitable. Efficacy is plotted on a T12, and total lead volume from all sources is tracked.

If you’re ready to dominate your marketplace and become the next household name, call Wizard Ryan Chute to see how you can work with Wizard of Ads® for Services.

Your life is a singular journey; a generation is a collective journey.

We’re circling an 11,000-degree fireball as it shoots through a limitless vacuum at 52 times the speed of a rifle bullet.

If this dirt-covered rock we occupy was the size of a standard schoolroom globe covered with a coat of varnish, the thickness of that varnish would represent the air we breathe.

Like it or not, we’re all in this together.

All seven and a half billion of us.

When it gets dark tonight, look up at the stars. You’ll be looking out the window of our spaceship.

If we could aim our 11,000-degree fireball at the nearest of its siblings – those things we call the stars – it would take us 63,000 years to get there even though we would be shooting through space at 52 times the speed of an 865 mph bullet.¹

Right now you think I’m going to talk to you about cultural tolerance or global warming or world peace or some other big idea.

But you’re wrong.

My goal today is to teach you how to use metaphors to make your data more interesting so that you can persuade more people.

I borrowed the metaphor of the earth being a spaceship from Buckminster Fuller and the varnish on the globe came from Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth.

A metaphor relates the unfamiliar to the familiar, the unknown to the known, effectively translating your data into a language your listener can understand.

A good metaphor sharpens the point of your data.

Once you’ve chosen your metaphor, your second challenge will be to select nouns and verbs that carry the voltage of mild surprise.

I might have said, “The earth orbits the sun as it moves through space at 0.0004842454 au. (astronomical units).” But I chose instead to say, “We’re circling an 11,000-degree fireball as it shoots through a limitless vacuum at 52 times the speed of a rifle bullet.”

“We’re circling” causes you to see yourself in the story. This is the first step toward reader engagement.
“11,000-degree fireball” is more vivid than “the sun,”
“shoots through a limitless vacuum” is more exciting than “moves through space,”
and “52 times the speed of a rifle bullet” packs more of a wallop than “astronomical units.”

Brilliant communication isn’t a product of wit or charm or even talent.

Preparation is what it takes to click the brightness of your message up to high beam so that it pierces the darkness like a lighthouse at midnight. In the words of Alec Nevala-Lee, “A good surprise demands methodical work in advance. Like any form of sleight of hand, it hinges on making the result of careful preparation seem casual, even miraculous.”

“Like a lighthouse at midnight” wasn’t technically a metaphor, by the way. It was a simile. Metaphor: The earth is a spaceship. Simile: The earth is like a spaceship. A simile feels like a metaphor and can be used to accomplish the same effect.

1. Write down what you want to say. Don’t overthink it. Just get some words on paper.
2. Find a metaphor that relates your information to an idea that your audience already understands.
3. Now look at what you wrote and replace the weary, dull words with energetic, bright ones.

Want to know a secret? There’s really no such thing as good writing. There’s only good rewriting.

Ernest Hemingway won both the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize in Literature. Each time he came to a place where the words weren’t flowing, he would set his work aside and answer some correspondence so that he could take a break from, “the awful responsibility of writing” — or, as he sometimes called it, “the responsibility of awful writing.” ²  In a letter to 22 year-old Arnold Samuelson in 1934, Hemingway advised that after writing something you think is pretty good, you should, “leave it alone and don’t think about it; let your subconscious mind do the work. The next morning, when you’ve had a good sleep and you’re feeling fresh, rewrite what you wrote the day before.”

Having the courage to write badly is the first step toward brilliant communication. The second step is to look at that first draft and say, “How can I make this better?”

One final piece of advice: Read great writing, for “As you read, so will you write.” Gene Fowler said it this way, “The best way to become a successful writer is to read good writing, remember it, and then forget where you remember it from.”

Brilliant communicators develop stronger relationships, achieve higher goals and make more money.

Why not become one?

If you're struggling to craft killer direct response ads for your business, Ryan Chute from Wizard of Ads® can help. Book a call.