A Talking Baby Is Cute, But Does It Actually Sell Anything?

Any Idiot Can Interrupt People – The Monkeys Over On Madison Avenue Do It All The Time

The fact is interrupting someone regardless of age, sex or socioeconomic conditions is pretty easy. Put a picture of a half-naked man or woman, a talking baby in a crib, a duck that does amazing things, really dramatic music and amazing cutting edge filmography or even wear a silly hat and scream and point and just about anyone will stop what they are doing and say…”what is that?”

So then what? Now we have the prospect’s attention based on a girl in a bikini or a guy in his boxer briefs and we are selling a car. What happens in the mind of the prospect when they realize the really creative baby talking about “riding the dog like a bull is frowned upon in this establishment” is actually a sales pitch for a stock-trading application? Or what about when a person sees a superhero duck squawking and making duck noises, they find out that the squawk is really a name and not a sound – and that name is of a brand of accident and life insurance? They get interrupted and then keep right on moving through their day – that’s what.

The process of correctly interrupting a prospect is a lot more complicated than simply being flashy, aggressive, edgy or creative. To correctly interrupt your prospect, you have to first understand how the human brain works when it is exposed to an advertisement.

The Reticular Activator – The Simple Science Of Correctly Interrupting A Prospect

If you want to know why customers buy what they buy, you need to see the world through their eyes. If you want to know what they see, you first must understand how the brain works–and how we make decisions. To understand that, you need to learn three major concepts that will make all the difference in the effectiveness and profitability of your marketing: Alpha Mode, Beta Mode, and Reticular Activator.

Alpha brainwaves produce a hypnotic state. They run automatic patterns that allow your brain to habitually perform tasks without conscious thought. If you stare at a candle long enough, you find yourself in the trance-like alpha mode. Or, have you ever driven to work only to realize when you got there that you hadn’t noticed a thing along the way? You were in alpha mode. Since driving to work is a habitual pattern, you don’t have to think about it. On a conscious level, you can talk on the cell phone, listen to the radio, shave or put on make-up while your brain drives you to work with no conscious thought. Think of alpha as mental sleepwalking. I doubt I am the only person who has put the cereal in the fridge and the milk back in the pantry after eating breakfast!

Here’s what alpha mode means in marketing terms: People see and hear ads with their eyes and ears but don’t notice them on a conscious level. If you open a newspaper, you may look at 70% ads and only 30% news articles. You only see the ads on an alpha level; 9.9 times out of 10 you won’t even notice them at all. All you’ll see is the news. That’s what you picked up the paper for in the first place.

In addition to alpha brainwaves, you also have beta brainwaves. Beta is the brain’s state of alertness and active engagement. It’s like driving to work in a thunderstorm. Your hands are firmly gripped at 10 and 2 o’clock and your pupils are as big as dimes. You’re sensitive to everything. You’re in beta mode when you’re watching a movie and the music builds to a crescendo in anticipation of something scary happening. Your heart starts thumping. You can think of beta as “alert mode.”

Here Is An Example Of What You See When You Are In “Alpha Mode” And Then “Beta Mode”– In marketing terms, beta mode is when a person consciously notices your ad or marketing piece and becomes open to suggestions and solutions. Something captures their attention and compels them to keep paying attention.

The key is to get the prospect out of alpha mode and into beta mode. You want to shake your prospects out of their subconscious haze that never sees your ad or marketing piece and into alert mode where they are fully conscious and aware of what you’re trying to communicate. Knowing how to do this–and then doing it–is the beginning of making a fortune in marketing.what – they won’t be able to.

Knowing how to move a prospect from alpha to beta mode requires you to learn the third major concept about how the human brain works–the Reticular Activator. This part of your brain is on the lookout 24/7–even when you’re asleep–for things that fall into any of these three categories: 1) things that are familiar or connected to you in some way; 2) things that are unusual, abnormal, shocking or strange; and 3) things that are dangerous, threatening or problematic.
Whenever your brain detects things that are familiar, unusual or problematic, it sends a message to the conscious side of the brain and says, “Hey, wake up! There’s something you need to pay attention to here.” We call those familiar, unusual or problematic things “activators.” Your brain acts like radar on a subconscious level, constantly looking for activators. It’s searching for things that are familiar, unusual, or problematic–things that require a conscious response. Whenever it finds one, it snaps your brain out of alpha sleep and into beta alert.

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