Article

Would you like fourteen “carrots”?

Topic: Success CoachingPublished October 20, 2009

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Would you like fourteen “carrots”? You bought a new car. As soon as you drove off the lot with it, you began to see cars like yours everywhere. You can safely assume those cars have been around all along, but you just didn’t notice them. What’s going on? 14 KARAT Your microwave begins to make funny noises. You finish your breakfast, get ready and go to work. The noise is forgotten. During your lunch break you pick up the paper and notice an ad for a microwave on sale. You weren’t thinking about your microwave, but you noticed the ad anyway. What’s going on? You are asked to ad fourteen single digit columns of fourteen numbers each. They all add up to fourteen. You are now asked to name a vegetable. You say “carrots.” Why? It’s called planting a reticular activator in the mind of the customer and it’s known as the Mount Everest of ad writing. The reticular activator is a mental trigger that directs your attention and causes you to notice and remember things you never intentionally committed to memory. Successfully implanted, a reticular activator will cause your consumer to think of your company as soon as they have a need for your product. Sound is a better medium through which to implant a reticular activator than sight. Science tells us it takes 29 percent longer to understand written words than spoken words. That is because written words have to be translated into spoken words before it can be understood. When we memorize the written word, it is the sound of the words we remember, not their appearance on the page. How many times has someone asked you, “Are you listening?” and even though you weren’t you can repeat verbatim their last statement? Information taken in through the eyes only lasts a second before it disappears. Information taken in thought the ears rattles around for nearly five seconds. Well-written ads establish an echoic retention through the use of a reticular activator. This will cause you to say “carrots” after repeating the number “fourteen.” How many times have you heard the phrase “fourteen-karat gold”? - Martin 14 KARAT

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