Waiting for the second shoe

Category: Editorial

A few years ago, when I was working in London, there was a roadside poster campaign featuring a wall of flames. Huge posters covered in flames. No words, no slogan at all. I became increasingly frustrated. What was this all about? Did they not realise that people would not understand? Why were they wasting all this money?

A few weeks later the posters were replaced by similar pictures, but showing a new Peugeot car bursting through the wall of flames.

Another campaign, on bus shelters, featured a pretty little girl and a quote from a nursery rhyme about slugs and snails – what little boys are made of. Again, no obvious advertising message. What was I missing? How incompetent were the advertisers that they did not realise their message would not get through?

A few weeks later, the posters were replaced with a message something like this: "We know you were wondering about the poster on the bus shelters. Now you know how powerful bus shelter advertising is, why not advertise with us?"

Both these advertisement campaigns were using a powerful technique. They referred to them as teasers. The human mind wants closure, and these campaigns did not provide it. As a result, they built an audience whose minds were alert and wondering about what was coming next. When the final message was released, it was many times more powerful than a normal advertising campaign.

The public was intrigued and primed to receive the message.

A similar technique can be used in training. Tell half the story and then stop just before the punch line – don't deliver that until the end of the course. Your
learners' minds will be open to new ideas as they search for the solution to the story – and closure!

Remember the story about two men in a hotel. One returned late at night a little drunk. He took off his left shoe and dropped it carelessly on the floor. This woke the man in the room beneath. The first man then realised he had been inconsiderate and carefully took off his right shoe and placed it on the floor. But the man below could not get back to sleep. His mind was waiting for the second shoe to drop!

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