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“Hi, honey. Look what I got free at the checkout. It’s a Chef’s Pal! It’s a dicer-grater-peeler all in one! Never needs sharpening, dishwasher safe!”

If that line sounds like an ad, well, it is. It’s also part of a real-life conversation — or so it seems to Truman.

In the film The Truman Show, Jim Carrey plays a man whose life is completely enmeshed in television. The school he attended, the woman he married, the job he goes to every day, the friends he’s hung around with since childhood — they’re all faked. The truth, hidden from him since birth, is that Truman’s life is a reality-TV show. His entire hometown is a collection of sets, props, actors and extras, all covered by armies of unseen cameras. Even the sky overhead is nothing but a blue dome.

Truman suspects something is up — literally, in the case of a lamp-powered “star” that accidentally drops from the “sky” and almost decapitates him. He wants answers, but of course the actors paid to be his wife and best friend aren’t helping — at least not until he notices an odd trait in his wife’s behavior. She seems determined to soothe his worries with various foods, drinks, or consumer products, blurting out excited pitches for these products almost at random. Carrey finally can’t take it anymore and yells, “Who are you talking to??”

These odd little inserted sales pitches take their cue from the old live commercials of TV’s Golden Age, when ads for the show’s sponsor were cleverly (or not-so-cleverly) worked into the scripts: “Bob, I know your wife’s death has got you down. Here, have a cigarette. You’ll really like these new Salems — they’re filter-tipped for a smoother, more satisfying smoke.”

Believe it or not, people still use this ham-handed marketing technique. How many times have you gotten interested in an informational article, only to realize before the end that it’s just a sales pitch for a product or service? Ever feel gratified to the author for that little walk down the primrose path? Or were you more likely to want that last few minutes of your life back?

Context matters in marketing. So does honesty. If you’re selling something, sell it, and make it clear to us that you’re selling it. Otherwise, any good will you’ve bought from us toward the beginning of that “special report” or “informative study” will just turn to hard feelings by the end when we realize we’ve been had. Sure, you’ll catch a few enthralled buyers, but keep in mind that bad impressions make more waves than good ones.

Don’t make your readers feel the betrayal, hurt, and anger Truman feels when he touches the sky and realizes it’s a backdrop.

1954 was Benjy Stone’s favorite year, as Benjy (Mark Linn-Baker) informs us in the opening narration of this film. A rookie writer for King Kaiser’s live comedy/variety show, he gets an assignment to watch over the latest weekly guest, former big-screen swashbuckler and ladies’ man Alan Swann (Peter O’Toole), to ensure that the besotted star can make it through the week of rehearsals sober enough to manage the live broadcast.

This is easier said than done, but not entirely for the expected reasons. Of course Alan Swann misbehaves predictably, leading Benjy through a boozy roller-coaster week, but underneath the bravado lurk crippling fears and insecurities. For one thing, he isn’t “Alan Swann” at all — he’s Clarence Duffy, a working-class boy who got a few lucky breaks and assumed a persona to perpetuate the hoax into fame and fortune. The glittering lifestyle swept him away, alienating him from his family to the point where he’s afraid to even speak to his daughter.

In light of this character crisis, we shouldn’t be too surprised when he begs off the performance. He can’t be Alan Swann to those millions of viewers watching live. He can’t make the lie work away from the forgiving atmosphere of a movie studio. “I’m not an actor, I’m a movie star!” he screams in terror.

But he’s forgotten something. To those millions of people who idolized him on those movie screens for so many years, he is Alan Swann, whether he himself believes it or not. Actor or not, he has created a living, breathing character, literally giving the performance of a lifetime in the process. As Benjy reminds him, “Nobody’s that good an actor!”

So when paid ruffians interrupt the live performance to beat up King Kaiser in mid-skit, who should come to the rescue but Alan Swann, swinging in on a cable like the movie swashbuckler of old. Perception hasn’t become reality, because it always was the reality, as Swann now understands.

That’s true you and your brand as well. Your audience knows only what it perceives. When you create a brand and project it to a mass audience, you open a window into a new little sliver of reality. Never mind that you’re secretly sweating bullets about whether your latest product will tank — as far as your readers are concerned, it’s the most exciting thing since the proverbial sliced bread.

But perception can also work against you. If you communicate your marketing message like an amateur, then that’s the persona you’ve created for all the world to see. If your website is slapdash, your marketing copy dry or weak, your brand identity confusing or nonexistent, then you’ve identified yourself as Clarence Duffy, not Alan Swann. And there’s no virtue in that level of “truth,” because you’re Alan Swann too!

Put your best self into your marketing — and have your own favorite year.

It may seem that I’ve been watching a lot of creepy movies lately, but I haven’t really morphed into the the Crypt Keeper; I’m just behind on my scheduled Halloween film viewing. Too bad none of my selections featured a marauding killer turkey — I’d be ready to celebrate Thanksgiving early.

The movie I just watched is the 1978 thriller Coma, directed by Michael Crichton from the novel by medical-suspense writer Robin Cook. In it, a doctor (Genevieve Bujold) suspects that her hospital is artificially inducing permanent brain death in certain patients for some mysterious purpose. She learns that these patients are being transferred to a place called the Jefferson Institute, so she decides to pay a visit and snoop further.

Bujold joins a medical tour group as a nurse leads them through the Institute. The first stop is a very ordinary-looking room with a couple of beds, the usual electronic monitors, cheery wallpaper, and warm lighting. The nurse explains that the coma victims are relocated here temporarily for loved ones’ visits because the real patient area would be “too much of a shock” for the visitors. And shocking it is — a gigantic room filled with unconscious human beings suspended from the ceiling at varying heights, horizontally, on long wires. It’s an eerie visual impression, somewhere between a morgue and a meat locker.

But the impression is false, says the nurse. The patients in this room receive state-of-the-art care and monitoring, despite the inhuman appearances — better care, in fact, than they’d receive in that charming little “traditional” hospital room.

The difference? Tone. Regardless of what’s actually best for the patients, the visitors need to see a comforting, homey environment, because that’s the tone they respond positively to.

And yes, that is our marketing moral for the day — tone matters. Whatever we’re presenting to our audience, the tone we set must be:

Professionally appropriate. We can’t sell a children’s hospital with a bunch of tech talk, and we can’t sell a high-tech engineering firm with clowns and balloons.

Emotionally appealing. What does your audience want to feel as a result of your product or service? Relief? Joy? Peace? Enthusiasm?

Vividly presented. Good marketing captures the imagination. Images, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings — these sense-memories are your tools for evoking strong, specific emotions in your audience.

So much for tone. In fact, now that my Halloween viewing queue in empty, I could use a change of tone myself. So break out the clowns and balloons….

Tangent Alert: The following movie summary gets around to the subject of marketing in pretty much the most roundabout way possible.

Having delivered that warning, I wish to report on a movie I watched a few days ago, a 1968 George Pal oddity entitled The Power. In it, a scientist played by George Hamilton (I told you it was an oddity) is wanted for murder after members of his research team begin dying in all manner of eccentric ways. It seems that one anonymous member of the team registered extremely high on some sort of psychic-power test, and George suspects this mystery person of bumping the others off telepathically. (Meanwhile, certain others on the team suspect George of the same thing.) I won’t give away the ending, but there’s another wrinkle in the plot that George discovers while he’s on the run — a mysterious guy named Adam Hart, who seems to be manipulating events from the shadows.

Our psychic murderer can do more than kill; he can alter people’s feelings and erase memories. Hamilton’s character finds the widow of one of the murdered scientists blissfully drinking at home only a few days after the tragedy. She comments that not only did her feelings of grief suddenly disappear overnight, but she’s puzzled that she can barely remember what her late husband even looked like….

Okay, now I can go on to the marketing stuff. Or as Bill Cosby used to say, “I told you that story to tell you this one.”

When our target audience reads our marketing copy, we can have no way of knowing what state of mind that person is in at that moment. Angry, sad, distracted, cheerful — we have no clue where we’re treading. So we have to launch into our spiel by commanding that the reader engage in the emotion of our choice. “Hey, you know that bill payment you were fretting over just now? I order you to forget. You will now stop being fearful and depressed and become excited and happy.” You have to lead off with a statement so strong, so fortified with the emotion you wish to evoke, that it shakes the reader out of whatever other state he may be in.

Hypnotists refer to this technique as a pattern interrupt, but you don’t have to be a hypnotist to use it. We interrupt our own patterns every day. You might be whistling a happy tune one second, then struck with sudden fear as you realize you’ve missed a big appointment. One emotional state gets slapped out of place by another.

That’s what good marketing does — it takes control of the reader’s inner conversation immediately and creates its own emotional state. Yes, a gentle, reasonable argument might persuade your audience eventually, but only if the reader is already in an ideally receptive state of mind. If you don’t want to take that chance, you’d better hit the pattern-interrupt button with your first phrase or sentence.

There. I did warn you.

Blake Edwards’ The Party (1968) is a very funny film, and not only for Peter Sellers’ slapstick abilities. The movie makes some caustic statements about Hollywood and the the importance of identity in a town where you’re nobody if you’re not “Somebody.”

Sellers plays Hrundi V. Bakshi, an unknown Indian actor playing a bit part in his first Hollywood film — until he accidentally blows up a gigantic location set, which gets him fired on the spot. The head of the studio, furious at hearing of this incident, writes Bakshi’s name down with the intention of blacklisting him. The only trouble is, he’s accidentally written the name down on an invitation list for his own high-society party that evening.

Bakshi arrives at the party, as mystified by his invitation as everyone else is by his presence. No one recognizes him, not even the producer who was there on the set to witness his catastrophic goof. The guests treat him with a mixture of bland politeness and indifference, even when his accident-prone nature causes him to all but demolish their home during the course of the party. Why? Because this is Hollywood, where only the people “worth noticing” get noticed. Never mind that one of your party guests is destroying the plumbing, or causing the automated bar to send everyone’s drinks crashing to the floor, or baby-talking to the parrot over the house intercom. No matter how incompetent he is, he’s unknown, anonymous, and therefore invisible.

We’ve all heard that bad word of mouth carries even faster and farther than good word of mouth. No company sets out to generate negative buzz. What, then, about the company that generates no buzz at all?

If you haven’t established yourself as a “leading brand” in your field, then for all practical purposes you’re invisible. While the recognized big boys are drawing both good and bad press, you’re a non-player. My advice? Get noticed. Make a statement — as loud a statement as possible. Create a brand identity and distribute it consistently across as many media channels as possible. Don’t wait for perfection, either; if the message is a little off-center or doesn’t get the desired response, then fix it. But until you put that message out there to get some kind of response, you don’t know what to adjust.

Once you’ve established your image as an expert in your field or an industry leader, your statements will carry enough weight that people will actually seek out your opinions and advice. You’ll be a guest of honor at the party and not a neutral interloper.

Until then, be as incompetent as you like — no one’s paying attention anyway!

“Monsters, John — monsters from the id!”

So gasps Lieutenant “Doc” Osroe (Warren Stevens) as he expires, his mind boiling over from the massive injection of too much knowledge for it to handle, in Forbidden Planet, an old favorite film of mine and an acknowledged sci-fi classic.

The story, based loosely on Shakespeare’s The Tempest, concerns a spaceship assigned to discover the fate of a long-lost expedition to the planet Altair IV. The only survivors they find there are the brilliant but secretive Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon) and his daughter Altaira (Anne Francis). They also meet Robby, a robot somehow created by Morbius using the incredible technology of the planet’s extinct race, the Krell. The Krell had found a way a boost their intelligence to achieve almost godlike levels of power, only to find themselves destroyed by an element of their own psyche they’d all but forgotten — the animal passions of the id.

The “id,” as you may know, is one of the three levels of human consciousness described by Freud and company as id, ego, and superego. The ego is our daily level of get-through-the-day consciousness, the part of us that we’re aware of as “us.” The superego is the higher, altruistic self that concerns itself with the common good, charitable works, the better of society, and so on. It’s the angel on your shoulder, pure intellect, untarnished by lust or greed.

Then there’s the id.

The id is that lizard brain I mentioned in my most recent post. It’s the part of us that never evolved — the animal that pursues its needs and wants with no other thought than “Gimme.” It’s the part of us that would murder, steal, or worse to get what it wants, when it wants it. In the Krell’s laudable desire to boost their brainpower to allow creation from pure thought, they inadvertently fed that same power to this hidden part of their minds. The resulting rampaging ids of an entire population led to just what you’d expect — the extinction of the race. “My poor Krell!” exclaims Morbius. “After a million years of shining sanity, they could hardly have understood what power was destroying them.”

Is the id “evil?” No. The id is simply the pleasure-seeking part of the brain, and pleasure can come from simply feeling loved or safe or excited or fed. It’s these feelings we mean to stimulate when we write marketing copy, because they are such powerful motivators of human behavior. We can deliberate the pros and cons of taking an action, but ultimately it’s our desire for gratification that makes us act.

But while appealing directly to the id will certainly get results, the most effective marketing, in my opinion, is that one-two punch of id and superego that has the reader yelling “Leggo my ego!” (Sorry, couldn’t resist.) For example: “Whizzo Organic Cleanser not only make cleaning easier, so you have more time to relax and have fun (id) — it’s also safe for humans and good for the environment (superego).” My ego is now free to buy Whizzo without guilt over my desire to work less and play more, because hey, it’s the socially responsible thing to do, right? I’m OBLIGATED to have more fun.

Of course there’s a great loophole to all this. When you appease your superego by doing “the right thing” — does it feel good? Sure it does! (Here, id, have a cookie. Now run along.) So when your marketing stimulates both the higher and lower parts of your readers’ brains, that middle part will feel no conflict about taking action. “What’s not to love about this?” they’ll say. “It’s good and good for you!”

And for YOU.

One of the most visually stunning films you’re ever likely to see is director/cinematographer Ron Fricke’s “spiritual travelogue” Baraka. This quasi-documentary, filmed in multiple countries over the course of a year, depicts Man’s relationship to nature and his attempt to communicate with the infinite. The glorious 70-millimeter widescreen photography depicts various human activities, from religious ceremonies and dances to the hectic flow of modern industrial life, comparing and contrasting these experiences with the titanic forces of the natural world. It is a powerful, enlightening, occasionally profound experience.

And there’s not a word of dialogue or narration in it.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so they say, and Fricke’s work certainly demonstrates that. But what do we do when we’re stuck with mere words to convey our corporate mission? Words can have impact when strung together just so, but ultimately we’re still just saying it, right? How do we show it instead?

We use the words to paint pictures.

I did this with a travel agent’s print marketing. I could’ve talked about the great discounts she offered, the special rates you could get if you subscribed to her annual service, and so on. I could have tried to appeal to the rational, thinking brain all day — and the rational, thinking brain, unemotional spoilsport that it is, would have devised rebuttal after rebuttal to thwart my efforts.

So instead of appealing to rationality, I went for the primitive lizard brain, that ancient hunk of cortex way deep down, the brain that WANTS things. The lizard brain doesn’t respond to reason, but it loves sensations. So I evoked images of white sands, crystalline waters, white gulls floating in a deep blue sky. I forced the readers to place themselves in this idyllic dream. And then I said, “Yes, you CAN have this,” and gave them the number to call. And call they did.

Images evoke emotions. You don’t have to be a brilliant painter or photographer to paint compelling pictures. You don’t need a 70-millimeter camera. You don’t even need a paintbrush. All you need is the infinite canvas of your reader’s imagination.

Quiz Show is a dramatic retelling of the famous brouhaha over the TV show 21 in the late 1950s, when a Congressional investigation found that the quiz show had been elevating certain contestants by feeding them the correct answers in advance, then asking them to “take a dive” by deliberately giving wrong answers once their popularity had begun to wane.

The film depicts the famous case of 21‘s producers elbowing contestant Herbert Stempel (played by John Turturro) off the show to make room for the more photogenic and charismatic Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes). A disgruntled Stempel spills the beans about his experience, ultimately forcing Van Doren and other contestants to testify that the show is fixed. Future television shows would avoid the quiz format for many years in favor of a softer “game show” approach, and Van Doren’s teaching and TV careers were thoroughly derailed.

In defense of their actions, the producers themselves raise an important and undeniable point — quiz shows are entertainment. They may be displayed as reality, but so, to a lesser degree, are Westerns, soaps, and most other TV dramas and comedies. The fact that we viewers know we’re watching an enhanced depiction of how the world really works is significant, and certainly 21 made no effort to clarify its methods, but the fact remains that real life, by itself, consists largely of boredom. In fact, the first episode of 21 was unscripted. It was also so stupendously dull that the fix was in from that point forward.

Consider today’s “reality shows,” which are so heavily edited as to barely resemble the actual events as they unfolded before the camera. We play along when we watch these shows, suspending just enough disbelief to buy what we’re seeing for the moment but fully aware that footage can be shuffled and participants prompted. Even local and national news programs take frequent flack for putting its own journalistic spin on events. If we watch a story about a two-hour high-speed chase, we’re not going to see two hours of cars driving around — we’re going to see the most exciting few seconds of the story. That’s just how drama works.

It’s the same situation when you’re selling your products or services. You can’t just feed us information; you have to entertain us with the most compelling few points about why we MUST call now or order today. By all means, remain ethical about it, but remember to entertain! Too many businesses lard their marketing with endless laundry lists of specifications, features and benefits, bludgeoning us with completeness in the name of full disclosure. But in marketing, you have to cut to the chase. Make us go “Wow,” and then we’ll want to hear the rest of story. Otherwise, you’ll have a magnificently detailed show that no one wants to watch.

I enjoy practically all the Coen Brothers’ films, but one of my favorites is a rather neglected item called The Hudsucker Proxy. This fantasy-comedy valentine to the filmmaking style of Preston Sturges and Frank Capra bombed at the box office and is rarely mentioned with the reverence of tone reserved for other entries in the Coens’ body of work, but I’ve always found it to have a special charm of its own. The story involves a hapless graduate of the Muncie School of Business Administration named Norville Barnes, whose first days in the Big Apple find him propelled from the basement mail room to the top executive floor of Hudsucker Industries — a floor from which the founder of the company has just plunged to his death. The Board of Directors, concerned that Old Man Hudsucker’s stock shares are up for public sale, decide to depress the stock’s value temporarily so they can buy it all up themselves and then return it to its former value. How will they accomplish this? By appointing as their new president the biggest idiot they can find, of course.

Poor Barnes. He accepts his new fame and (dwindling) fortune completely innocent of the political machinations behind it all. He’s determined to bring new vitality to Hudsucker Industries through his own unique invention — which appears, from the drawing he shows everyone, to be nothing but a circle. Barnes enlightens his befuddled audiences with the cryptic phrase, “You know — for kids!” Convinced that this latest demonstration of stupidity can only depress the company stock further, the Board greenlights this mysterious project, branding it the the Hula Hoop. (Obviously, the movie plays fast and loose with history.) Surely no one will want to buy such a ridiculous product…

Of course, it’s easy for us to laugh at the Board’s shortsightedness, knowing what we know about the Hula Hoop as a pop culture phenomenon. But at first the Hula Hoop does seem like a flop — the toy stores can’t even give it away. It’s only when one kid starts playing with the Hula Hoop and demonstrating various tricks with it that people start buying every Hula Hoop they can get their hands on. Hudsucker Industries is saved. (Sorry, Board.)

Barnes has clearly learned a valuable lesson. The final scene shows him introducing a new toy called the Frisbee to a puzzled Board. This time, though, he’s ready with a demonstration, flinging the Frisbee out the window to show exactly what it does and why it’s cool.

So the lesson here is simple: All the charts and specs in the world, all the features lists, even the lists of benefits we’re all told to emphasize in our marketing, pale before the picture of the product (or service) in action. I don’t care about the technical specifications of a Frisbee’s aerodynamic capacity. I don’t care about how it’s good exercise for me to chase after the thing. I want to see it fly!

Make your audience imagine the scene. Paint the picture for them in words. Give them the feeling of watching that Frisbee climb, bank, curve, do all the things you can make it do. Convey the FUN of it!

You know — for kids!

Napoleon Dynamite – Like, the Best Special Edition Ever!

Napoleon Dynamite has polarized movie audiences ever since its release in 2004. Viewers either love the film or hate it, with almost no middle ground. Napoleon is the kind of teenage spazz you want to applaud, laugh at scornfully, or punch in the face, depending on how his own cluelessness affects others at any given moment. While this uber-geek’s mainstream classmates hold him in the regard you’d expect from them, Napoleon has carved out a place among the nerds, dorks and outcasts who move silently and more or less invisibly through the hallways, including his sort-of girlfriend Deb and his new pal Pedro.

Napoleon wades into the world of marketing when he urges Pedro to run for class president, even though Pedro has no real platform or selling points as a candidate. No problem, says Napoleon in his new self-appointed role as campaign manager: “Just tell them all their dreams will come true if they vote for you.” These words don’t seem to impress the student body nearly as much as Napoleon’s frenzied “Vote for Pedro” dance does, but when the votes are counted, Pedro comes out on top.

So Pedro wins despite his sales pitch — or does he? His crowd may be sitting on their hands during his campaign speech, but bear in mind that his target market is used to not being heard. In a scene leading up to election day we see a wimpy type being harassed by bully, only to have Napoleon sweep in with the promise that “Pedro offers you his protection.” This sort of thing happens more than once, and it becomes obvious that Napoleon is unifying the downtrodden of the school to place one of their own in charge of things. For them, this isn’t just another popularity-contest school election — it’s their one shining chance to raise their collective voice and be seen as human beings for a change. Maybe Pedro really can make their dreams come true.

We may sneer at such over-the-top sales pitches and promises, wondering who on Earth would possibly believe or respond to such blatant manipulation. But you can find a receptive audience for any pitch, if you know your target market. There’s a reason why so many landing pages scream that you can make BIG BIG BUCKS RIGHT NOW without having any skills or doing much of anything: “It’s really that simple! Get your FREE information today!” Hyperbole works if it’s aimed squarely at those who are desperate to hear it.

Finally, and perhaps more importantly, Napoleon understands that marketing isn’t about features (new lockers, more dances, nicer uniforms), it’s about benefits (dreams coming true). Napoleon knows what those dreams are, because he knows his audience.

All that plus mad dance skills! Wouldn’t you vote for Pedro?