Now Reading | The Ape, the Adman, and the Astronaut | OM
Such a great excerpt on storytelling from the Ogilvy & Mather series, The Red Papers, in “The Ape, the Adman, and the Astronaut” edition:
In a study by Lawrence Williams of the University of Colorado and John Bargh of Yale, it was discovered if you ask research subjects to evaluate a given person and make them hold a cup of hot coffee (versus iced coffee) while performing the evaluation, they will judge the target person as being warmer.
Story is persuasive, immersive, pleasurable, gripping, and somehow manages to bypass our skeptical defenses. Ads that win both effectiveness and creative awards outsell by a factor of 12 those that just win effectiveness awards.
Fables knock facts into a cocked hat. Reason and logic, pie charts, and graphs turn out to be very inferior agents of desire and means of persuasion.
Rock on.
