LEARNING LESSONS FROM BOOKS

 

 

I was reading the latest Richard Osman book.

The chapters are very short, about 3 pages, which I like, before I have a chance to get bored the various stories change and intertwine.

But what surprised me was, in the middle of the book was a brief lesson about advertising.

For background, the character Jonjo is a university lecturer, an expert in antiques.

The characters Ron and Joyce have asked him to explain how the world of antiques works, and, in particular, how to make serious money at it.

 

“And if I did want to become a millionaire?” Ron asks. “How might I go about that?”

Jonjo holds a finger in the air. “Well, isn’t that the question of the day?”

“Let me show you something,” says Jonjo.

Jonjo delves into a leather briefcase and takes out a small velvet pouch.

He then slips on a pair of white gloves, loosens the drawstring on the pouch and tips a silver metal medal into his hand.

“Ooh,” says Joyce.

Jonjo places the medal on the flat of his palm, and shows it to each of them in turn. “Now what you’re looking at here – please don’t touch – is a DSM, a Distinguished Service Medal, awarded in the Second World War. Been in the same family since then, but they’re putting great-grandkids through university, so they brought it into me for a valuation.”

 “I asked the family what they expected the medal to be worth, and they said they had read it could be worth up to ten thousand pounds.”

“Naah,” said Ron.

“I had to tell them they had been misinformed,” says Jonjo. “And that actually, given the condition of the medal and the provenance, having been in the family since it was awarded, it would be worth much nearer thirty thousand pounds.”

“Bugger me,” says Ron.

“It’s beautiful isn’t it? says Jonjo.  

“Very,” says Joyce.

Jonjo slips the medal back into the bag and peels off his gloves. “What’s beautiful about it, Joyce, would you say?”

“Well, it was very…shiny?”

“I’ll tell you what was beautiful about it,” says Jonjo. “And that will tell you how you become a millionaire in the world of antiques.

What was beautiful was the velvet bag and the white gloves, and the way my voice dropped in a tone of reverence.

What was beautiful was the story,” says Jonjo. “The great-grandchildren, the family finally deciding to sell.”

“Well, yes,” says Joyce. “That was beautiful too.”

“But all lies,” says Jonjo, tipping the medal unceremoniously onto the table. “It’s a piece of tat, knocked up in a workshop about twenty miles from here. There’s a gentleman who makes them for a living, and you have to keep a keen eye out for them. This one slipped through the net at a local auction house, and, fortunately, I was on hand to show them the error of their ways.

I’ve kept it ever since to teach the exact lesson I’m teaching you – the lesson being that if you can tell a story you can sell a five-bob bit of metal for thirty thousand pounds. And that’s how you become a millionaire.”

 

Now, that is what we all know about advertising but often forget: it’s a two-stage process.

Currently, it’s fashionable to call it System One and System Two thinking.

But it’s what we’ve always known as ‘Desire – Permission’.

You have to create the desire for something (the right brain, the emotional) before closing the sale with the permission (the left brain, the rational).

It’s no good giving someone permission to buy if they don’t have the desire, and it’s no good creating the desire if we don’t close the sale with the permission.

Currently, a lot of people seem to believe we can create desire without permission.

The fashion is for Emotion without reason.

Right Brain without Left Brain.

System One without System Two.

We seem to have forgotten the basic equation of how the world works is also the basic equation of how advertising works.