Don’t use these 7 ways to hijack attention and sell anything if your product sucks
The year is 2039.
We have flying cars, billionaires go to Mars for summer vacation and intelligent robots are doing all the menial work.
Then one Tuesday evening your doctor friend tells you he found a way to cure cancer.
And he needs your help to get it into the hands of billions of people. You need to help him sell it.
Now that you know you literally have the BEST PRODUCT EVER in your hands, you have to sell the shit out of it.
You can’t half-ass it.
So you have to do everything in your power to get this cure to everyone in the world.
What would you do?
What kind of marketing & sales tactics, ideas and frameworks would you use?
TV ads?
Billboards?
Social media?
Hiring celebrities?
…
Any of these could work.
But what is more important are the principles you use. Principles that work regardless of the medium.
And those principles don’t change. They’re the same now as they have been 2000 years ago when Jesus was walking around the Earth.
The thing is, those principles are the same, but different people explain them in different ways.
And one of the best ways I’ve seen it explained was when Craig Clemens came on the My First Million podcast (for the second time) back in 2023 and did a presentation on the “7 human hijacks”.
He calls them that because they hijack your brain. You can’t help but pay attention.
And that’s what the best marketers and ad men have always done.
Here is a very simple overview of those 7 hijacks.
1) Make it about them
Always make it about the customer, and about the benefits they’re gonna get.
Instead of talking their ear off about your product, how great it is and all its features.
Sell a movie-star smile, not a toothpaste.
Sell a hole in the wall, not a drill.
Sell a healthier life, not medicine.
2) Make it an event
Heard the old expression “nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd”?
Well, this is exactly it.
When there is an event, people show up, reporters cover it, influencers talk about it.
If you make your advertising an event, people cannot help but pay attention. Humans cannot resist an event.
3) Powerful demonstration
Show what your product does.
If you’re selling a water filter, get some dirty water, run it through your filter and drink it.
If you’re selling an elevator brake system, get on the elevator and cut the cord to show how your system works, in front of hundreds of people.
If you’re selling a cure for cancer, show how it works.
4) Show unquestionable proof
Using experts in your field, like doctors.
You can also use influencers.
Because people seeing other people use a product makes that product look cool.
5) Change a daily behavior
Change something people are already doing or add to it.
Like Pepsodent and Claude Hopkins increased the number of Americans brushing their teeth daily from 5% to 85%.
Or like how Dave Asprey got you to add grass-fed butter and MCT oil to your coffee, to make it “bulletproof”.
I mean I don’t even drink coffee, but on the rare occasion I do, I add some kind of oil to it to make it “better”.
Does it work? I have no clue.
6) Sell the dream
Sell them something they dream about, something they want.
Like a movie-star smile, if you use Pepsodent.
Or flying like Mike, if you wear Nikes.
7) Help them rebel -- or feel superior
Apple is the best example here.
First with their Think Different ads, like the “Here’s to the crazy ones” with Albert Einstein, MLK, Muhammad Ali and other “rebels” of their time.
People felt like they were rebelling when they were using Apple products.
Now?
They feel superior to Windows and Android users.
Craig gave an even better example in the podcast episode.
He talked about how Edward Bernays used the Women’s Rights Movement to make Lucky Strike the best-selling cigarettes by getting women to smoke (which was illegal at that time).
…
Those are the 7 human hijacks I learned about from Craig Clemens.
They work.
Regardless if you use them for good, or for evil.
So remember to use them for good and get karma on your side.