First, read quickly through the following list of characters. As you read each one, consider briefly how curious you would be to read a story or see a movie about that character. (Your curiosity level could be low, medium, or high for each or every character---there are no "right" or "wrong" answers.)
Here's the list. (Feel free to skim.) How curious would you be to read a story about...
A Convicted Murderer. . .
A Bodybuilder. . .
A Drug Abuser. . .
A Psychopath. . .
A Raw Foods Vegan. . .
A College Dropout. . .
A Sunday School Teacher. . .
A Homeless person. . .
A Feminine person. . .
A Buddhist. . .
A Well-Groomed person
A Brilliant Scholar of 19th Century Philosophy. . .
A person who Leads the World's Largest Charity for Abandoned Kittens
A person who Wins Company Awards For Reliably Flying Jumbo Jets
A Prison Guard. . .
A person who Organizes Monster Truck Rallies. . .
A Millionaire. . .
A Scientist. . .
A person who Attends Swinger Conventions. . .
A Death-Metal Fan. . .
A Butcher. . .
A Mud Wrestler. . .
My guess is, your curiosity level for any of these characters was pretty low. Or at best, for one or two of them, maybe "medium." Right? Most of these were probably "ehhh, whatever," for you.
Well, here's the second part of the experiment. I'm simply going to mix-and-match a few of the descriptions. What would be your curiosity level for reading a story or watching a movie about....
A Convicted Murderer who is a Brilliant Scholar of 19th Century Philosophy. . .
A Bodybuilder who Leads the World's Largest Charity for Abandoned Kittens. . .
A Drug Abuser who Wins Corporate Awards For Reliably Flying Jumbo Jets. . .
A Psychopath Prison Guard. . .
A Raw Foods Vegan who Organizes Monster Truck Rallies. . .
An Asthmatic Flutist. . .
A College Dropout Millionaire. . .
A Bipolar Brain Surgeon. . .
A Dominatrix Religious Publisher. . .
A Homeless Scientist. . .
A Sunday School Teacher who Attends Swinger Conventions. . .
A Buddhist Death-Metal Fan. . . (Actually, someone close, though punk, not death metal. Brad Warner is one of my favorite writers.)
A Feminine Butcher. . .
A Well-Groomed Mud Wrestler. . .
My guess is, your intrigue level was much higher for these characters. Right? C'mon, who wouldn't at least be curious about a magazine article with the title "Bodybuilder Leads the World's Largest Charity for Abandoned Kittens"?
You can almost hear the lead-in forming in your head. . . "Frankie spent hours every day gruffing and grunting as he pumped iron in the seedy gym, so that all the men around him knew that he could pummel them in an instant, and so that all the ladies would fawn over his hot, rippled abs. But really, deep down inside, all Frankie thought about, all he obsessed over, all he truly cared about in the world. . . was saving abandoned kittens."
Literature? Perhaps not. Intriguing? Sure.
So what's my point with all of this? Why are the characters in the second list greatly more compelling, intriguing, fascinating? Why does your mind wander with images and questions about the characters in the second list, while your mind just says "hmmmph" to the characters in the first?
The answer is: paradox.
Or, put another way, creative tension.
Let's read again a description of a few of the characters in the second list. And, this is going to sound terribly cheesy and froo-froo, but as you read these, be aware of your bodily sensations as you read them. How do your body, your stomach, your nerves feel as you read these? A Convicted Murderer who is a Brilliant Scholar of 19th Century Philosophy. . . A Drug Abuser who Wins Corporate Awards For Reliably Flying Jumbo Jets. . . A Psychopath Prison Guard. . . A Raw Foods Vegan who Organizes Monster Truck Rallies. . .
My guess is, if you were really aware of and attuned to your body sensations as you read these, you could detect a bit of tension in your gut. For the first three of those descriptions above, you can almost hear the violins holding the dissonant chord in the movie soundtrack as the character is introduced.
That tension in your gut is suspense. Conflict. Paradox---conflicting tendencies inside. (Bryan Franklin brilliantly describes the dynamic tension that paradox creates within us, and within great leaders, in this TEDx clip: watch this clip starting here. He's one of the people who first got me thinking about paradox and its relation to power, intrigue, and branding.)
It is the lifeblood of all great narrative. It's what keeps you turning the pages. It's what keeps your butt glued to the theater seat to see how it all ends.
And here, we're talking about inner conflict.
The characters listed in the first list are unipolar. They don't have any inner conflict, so far as we know. Once you've read the description, your mind conjures up a stock, stereotypical image to fill in the blank, and you feel you know everything there is to know about the character. Been there, done that. Yawn. Next.
But, simply by combining some of the descriptions in the first list together, in non-standard ways, we were able to create tension. The characters in the second list are not flat and unipolar. They are multidimensional and (forgive my creative re-framing of this term, given one of my recent articles) bipolar. They do not have one center of gravity---they have two, and that creates a dynamic tension within them.
As Justine Musk analyzes brilliantly in her series on how to be an interesting person, interestingness lies at the crossroads in life, the intersections, the clashes and edges of two different tendencies, at the points of ambiguity, at the points of risk and unknowing.
One can imagine the characters in the second list hiding something from at least some of their peers. The religious school teacher who attends swinger conventions certainly does not tell her religious school colleagues about her extracurricular activities. And, she probably doesn't tell her convention friends about her day job either.
She is conflicted inside. She has many sides. She is multidimensional. She is wracked by multiple and often conflicting interests, values, desires, and drives. Just like all of us are.
Because we're human. Because, if you don't experience any inner conflict, you must be some kind of alien of righteousness, rationality and consistency---you're certainly not like the rest of us!
This is what is infinitely fascinating about us. This is the human predicament: precisely that we are not the boring, cardboard homo economicus, utility-maximizing, preference-consistent rational actors which have been much-fantasized about by your Econ 101 professors. (Those professors, by the way, are not immune from their own inner conflicts, unacknowledged as they may be: they bandy on about free markets, all the while enjoying their state-subsidized, tenure-protected, 12-hour-a-week, six-figure jobs which would never be offered to anyone on a free market, without the intervention of the leviathan welfare state forcing their useless hokum upon taxpayers.)
This is the human predicament. We are a paradoxical bunch, we humans, the whole lot of us (myself included.) We are in turmoil inside. ("[W]ith ceaseless turmoil seething," to use a phrase from Kubla Khan---my favorite poem---whose author, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and whose speaker and subject, all seem to enjoy their share.)
We want many different things at once, and those ends are often in conflict with each other. That is the essential mystery, the essential intrigue, the essential paradox of being human.
And we are infinitely fascinated by seeing that mystery of human being-ness, the conflicts within us all, dramatized for us: on the screen, in novels and magazine articles, and yes, in (certain) brands.
Next---Finally Revealed: The Secret of Obsession-Worthy Branding
Before I explain what all of this philosophical-poetic stuff has to do with branding, let me make a distinction. For the purpose of this article, I'd like to distinguish between two types of businesses: those that primarily solve a problem, vs. those that primarily create an experience.
(In practice, most businesses do both. It's a spectrum, not an either/or. But for the sake of argument, let's separate them here---as most businesses tend to focus on one side of the spectrum much more heavily than on the other side.)
The vast majority of books on branding out there are focused on businesses that solve a problem, because that's what most businesses are focused on.
In these books, you'll read about how the secret to great branding is to be extremely clear who your customer is, and what problem you're solving for them, all clearly articulated in a focused Unique Selling Proposition. These books advise you to pick the most focused, segmented niche possible. (Don't just be a plumber. . .Be "The Plumber for Female Republicans with Kids in the North Dallas Area™" etc.)
If your business is focused on solving a problem, this is all great advice. However, useful as it may be for most businesses, this type of branding advice overlooks a second type of business, for which it is completely useless: businesses or individuals which are focused primarily on providing an experience.
For such people and businesses, all the talk about niches and USPs must go out the window. Instead we should be playing in the land of mystery, intrigue, creative tension, and human paradox discussed at the beginning of the article.
Have you ever seen a world-class restaurant promote itself with a tagline? The thought is almost absurd.
"The Four Seasons: America's Favorite Spot for Power Lunches Under Beautiful Ceiling Art™"
No, it's just, The Four Seasons. You can almost feel the paradox, the intrigue, the creative tension of cyclic change, right in the name. Boom. That's it. That's what you need and want when creating an obsession-worthy-brand.
(One thing you can be sure of: if the restaurant awning has "Fine Dining" printed on it, it will be anything but.)
Or, think of branding for high fashion. Or for perfume brands. Or for hip, sexy nightclubs. All full of paradox. Here's one of my favorite nightclub names: Covet, on E. 55th St. in Manhattan. Pretty damn clear about the dynamic that's going on in there---they're certainly not solving any problems for you! (In fact, they're implying that you just might have more problems when you left than when you entered, if the beautiful object of your coveting does not reciprocate!)
But people line up to enter. Indeed, the entire experience of lining up for a velvet rope is itself a paradox---people begging, literally begging, to be allowed the privilege of lightening their wallets substantially. (Victor Cheng analyzes a similar phenomenon on this excellent post about the branding of Apple.) So it makes sense that the nightclub uses a literary, even biblical, word for desire (not a word used in everyday parlance) to market themselves.
(Can you imagine a brand of, say, auto parts, or pencil erasers, marketing itself under the brand "Covet"?)
The more you want to create an aura around your brand, the more you want people lining up to throw cash at you for not-totally-clear reasons, the more you must play in the fields of mystique, uncertainty, paradox, creative tension, and intrigue.
One of the only books on branding/marketing out there which really gets this type of branding---branding for experiences, rather than for niche problems or for unique selling propositions---is Fascinate: Your Seven Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation by Sally Hogshead. It's one of the best books on branding I've ever read. The 7 "fascination triggers" she analyzes are Lust, Mystique, Alarm, Prestige, Power, Vice, and Trust. Clearly, the one we're talking about most in this article is Mystique.
The people who understand the dynamic best are celebrities.
They know they are not selling a solution to anything. (God knows!)
They know they are selling an experience. And the experiences that truly get under our skin and get us obsessed, needing to learn and experience more, are the ones with paradox, with creative tension, with uncertainty and ambiguity. They are shrouded under the Cloud of Unknowing, the ineffable via negativa pointed at (but never fully described, because it is indescribable) by mystics around the world, the uncertainty inherent in all acts of creation, as described by Jonathan Fields in his important new book on the topic.
Keats called it the "negative capability":
that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason - Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half knowledge. This pursued through Volumes would perhaps take us no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration.
If there is any property that allows celebrities (and some business brands) to becomes godlike figures for us, to divinize and deify themselves in front of our very eyes, with our enthusiastic consent, this is it: the ineffable paradox they embody, their glorious magnification of all the great human powers and all the great human follies which comingle as uneasy bedmates within each of our souls.
Madonna. The brilliance of a woman who cultivates an aura of sexual provocation adopting that as her moniker is beyond words---and no doubt contributed to our endless fascination with her.
Lady Gaga. Who drools gaga over a proper "lady"? We do.
Why don't celebrities, fashion labels, high-end restaurants and nightclubs, musicians, writers, and artists focus on their "niche," their "target audience," their "Unique Selling Proposition"? Why don't celebrities market themselves with taglines, the way other brands do?
Imagine it:
Angelina Jolie: The Preternaturally Gorgeous Woman Who Can Kick Your Ass™
Johnny Depp: The Gothic Emo Guy Who Makes Women Around the World Drool™
The reason that high-end restaurants, nightclubs, fashion lines, artists, or celebrities do not use niches, taglines, or clearly-articulated unique selling propositions in their branding is that they are not solving problems. They are providing an experience. And the experiences we're most willing to pay for again and again involve uncertainty, suspense, excitement, adventure, and intrigue. Paradox. Tension. Unknowing. How is it going to turn out?
With experiences and intrigue, the more you tell, the less you sell. The qualities that are being sold are fundamentally ineffable. They are tacit qualities, not explicit. Attempts to quantify or account for that je ne sais quoi in an orderly and rational way actually diminish and impoverish the magic of je ne sais quoi. Attempts to explain (literally, "make plain") the experience dull its shining, its aura, its fundamental beating heart of paradox.
The process for convincing someone you can solve their problem is very different from the process of convincing them you can deliver them an experience.
If you want to solve someone's problem (I need the leak in my sink fixed! I need my tooth pain to go away!) you can tell them all the ways you're going to solve their problem. If you're credible enough in telling them, they'll go for it.
But what if you are trying to sell someone on the idea that you can create an experience for them? What if you are trying to sell them on the idea of a dinner at a fancy restaurant? Or going out to see a movie? Or sitting at home and reading a novel? The only way you can truly convince them of that is by transmitting to them a small taste of the larger experience--so that they feel and grasp the experience in their bodies, viscerally.
You can see this clearly in some of the most important marketing/branding any of us will ever do: romance.
The ultimate example of marketing an experience is romantic attraction. You may be trying to market the experience of a passionate summer fling, or you may be trying to market the experience of everlasting love. But either way, you're marketing an experience.
You could talk all day about how sensitive, dependable, caring, dashing, ravishing, cultured, resourceful, ambitious, sexy, or parenting-ready you are, or whatever other kind of romantic ideal you are trying to market to your perfect mate---but as we all know, in the land of dating (and everywhere else where experiences are being sold), talk is cheap. Talking about how great you are in all of these departments will probably only get you labelled as a braggart. You can really only convince people of these traits by giving them an experience of the traits.
And ideally, more than one of the traits at once.
Nice? Boring...
A nice stud in bed? Hmmm....
A ladies man? Eh. . .
A onetime ladies man who has matured from his past and is now ready to commit to the right woman forever? . . . Oooh, where is this guy!?
Since the fifties, philosophers, and cultural critics have debated Freud's famous question: "The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is 'What does a woman want?'"
Well, I know what a woman wants. And I have known for many years.
I need only observe my wife.
The answer is: a woman wants everything.
(It's no coincidence that one of the bestselling books of all time, Eat, Pray, Love, had as its subtitle: "One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia.")
When it comes to men, a woman wants:
Diligent, yet spontaneous.
Sexual, yet respectful.
Sensitive, yet badass.
Ambitious, yet laid-back.
Ruthlessly determined, yet spiritually connected.
(My mother told me that she was a goner for my father before she even met him. My mother's sister Jackie invited him to a party, but before she invited him, she told my mother: "Watch out. He's brilliant. . . but dangerous." Nice winging for my papa, Aunt Jackie!)
And not just women. Men want everything too:
A career woman, who loves cooking and nurturing the kids.
Intelligent, yet a sexpot.
Faithful, yet a vixen in bed.
Ambitious, yet surrendered to his powerful masculine leadership.
This list goes on. . .
(No wonder women too often feel confused by dating. . . "What does a man want?!?!")
This is the human condition, the human ambiguity, the human paradox.
We all want to have our cake and eat it too. We all want things which are not easily compatible, which in fact are often opposed; yet it doesn't make us want them any less.
We are all ceaseless, seething souls.
Tap into some of this humanity in the way you (or your business) present yourself to the public. You may be surprised at mirth, merriment (and obsession) that results . . .
Use this only at your own risk. . .
***
Michael Ellsberg is the author of The Education of Millionaires: It’s Not What You Think, and It’s Not Too Late, which is launching from Penguin/Portfolio in September. It’s a bootstrapper’s guide to investing in your own human capital at any age. Michael sends manifestos, recommendations, tips, and other exclusive content to his private email list, which you can join at www.ellsberg.com. Connect with him on Twitter @MichaelEllsberg and on Facebook.
