“National Blonde Brownie Day on January 22nd recognizes a treat often referred to as blondies.”
Blondie and Blondies.
Now if you had asked me on January 21 what a blonde brownie is, I wouldn’t have known. Now I do…and you will also.
“[A] a blonde brownie is similar to a chocolate brownie. In place of cocoa, bakers use brown sugar when making this delicious brownie, giving it a sweet-tooth-satisfying molasses flavor!”
Just one change and you get something that looks and tastes different.
As you know, one of the seven questions I ask before writing client content is about the emotions that the piece should invoke.
Look at the seventh question I ask.
Should prospects be angry? Scared? Motivated?
Or, can a change in the emotional content of a written piece evoke great paralyzing fear?
(Maybe those tasty brownies contain deadly bacteria.)
If you change the emotion words in a piece of content, you get something that looks and tastes different.
Each person has certain immutable attributes associated with them, such as their blood type. And other attributes, such as their fingerprints and iris characteristics, which are mostly immutable. (Although I defy anyone to change their irises.)
But other things associated with us are all too mutable. If we use these for identification, we’ll end up in trouble.
Elvis Presley, songwriter?
Let’s take one of the many attributes associated with Elvis Presley. If you haven’t heard of Presley, he was a popular singer in the mid 20th century. He’s even in Britannica.
(As a point of clarification, the song “Radio Radio” is associated with a DIFFERENT Elvis.)
Among many other songs, Presley is associated with the song “Don’t Be Cruel.”
Elvis Presley.
Presley was not only the performer, but also the credited co-songwriter.
After all, that’s what BMI says when you search its Songview database. See BMI work ID 317493.
“…he listened to a selection of acetate demos provided by Freddy Bienstock, the new song representative assigned to Elvis by his publishers, Hill and Range. He chose “Don’t Be Cruel” by an obscure Brooklyn-born r&b singer and songwriter, Otis Blackwell. As per Hill and Range’s contractual requirement, it came with the assignment of half the publishing to Elvis Presley Music and half the writer’s share to Elvis Presley, but as Blackwell, the first of Elvis’ great “contract” writers, was always quick to point out, it was the best deal he ever made.”
Many songs are credited to Presley as a songwriter, but in reality he wrote few if any of them. Yet the “songwriter” attribute is assigned to him. Do we simply accept what BMI says and move on?
But there are other instances in which there are no back room deals, yet a song is strongly associated with a musical entity who never wrote it.
George Jones, not a songwriter
Take BMI Work ID 542061. The credited songwriters for this particular song are Robert Valentine Braddock and Claude Putnam, more commonly known as Bobby Braddock and Curly Putnam. According to RolandNote, Braddock and Putnam began writing this song on March 4, 1977 and finished it on October 18, 1977.
It was recorded by Johnny Russell on either March 7, 1978 (RolandNote), or January 18, 1979 (Second Hand Songs), or both (Classic Country Music Stories). But no recording was released.
Then George Jones recorded the song on February 6, 1980 with subsequent overdubs (“You know she came to see him one last time”) when he was more sober. His reaction?
“I looked [producer] Billy [Sherrill] square in the eye and said ‘nobody’s gonna buy that thing, it’s too morbid.’”
And morbid it was. Although popular music in general and country music in particular has never shied away from morbid songs.
Released the next month on March 18, the song was never associated with Braddock, Putnam, Russell, or Sherrill ever again. “He Stopped Loving Her Today” is completely associated with George Jones.
Now there’s a particular article that I wrote for a Bredemarket client a couple of years ago that used a slow reveal “reverse timeline” effect. Starting with 2022 and moving back in time to 2019, I slowly dropped the details about a missing person who was identified via biometric technology, finally solving the mystery of the person’s identity (Connerjack Oswalt).
This has been a long-standing favorite of mine, from the old days before everyone used artificial intelligence to create their own robots. (Or lovers.)
A company’s “why” story can evoke negative emotions, and for this reason can powerfully resonate with their prospects who are experiencing the same problem, and admire someone who overcame it.
As Davison tells it, her 1:1s with businesspeople often turn into confessionals. Not that I picture the lovebug-loving Chantelle as a priest, but bear with me.
“Then they tell me something they’ve been carrying around for YEARS.
“Something they’re convinced would make people think less of them.
“Something they’ve buried so deep they’d almost forgotten it was there….
“The messy backstory that shaped exactly WHY they do what they do.”
And that can resonate with prospects.
Take the Keith Puckett failure example that I shared earlier: he had purchased a home security system thinking that it would protect him…and then while he was traveling the security system sent him an alarm with no context.
Now I guess Puckett could have been embarassed by this stupid purchase of something that did no good at all. But Puckett wasn’t embarassed at all. And he tells Ubiety prospects that he spent good money on a bad system, experienced fear and helplessness…and that he NEVER wants Ubiety customers to experience those same negative emotions.
Share YOUR why story.
Even if it’s a poor tattoo choice.
Google Gemini.
And if you need help writing your why story, talk to me.
You want your prospects to feel distinct emotions when they consider your product—the stronger the better.
When your prospects consider the, um, prospect of life WITHOUT your product, they should experience fear or anger because your product is not available to them.
But when your prospects consider the alternative of having your product at their disposal, they should not only feel a quiet satisfaction but should feel power and joy. Your product equips them to perform the tasks that are important to them.
Bredemarket 