Beguiling Design: The Science Behind Captivation

Magic and Marketing may both start with ‘M' but they've little else in common. One's about deceit and the other trust. But if you're expecting me to turn this on its head you're in for a long wait. No, instead I'm going to use one to help explain something hugely important about the other.

Everyone knows magicians can't pull rabbits from hats or cut their assistants in half. Turns out magic isn't about tricks at all - it's about why we can't see them happening. Magic's about directing attention. And poor design doesn't get that...

Creative process

For the 2016 Target Components Open Day I'd wanted to stage something about marketing communications. Something original about best practices. Something that got to the crux of why they are the way they are. Because while many of you market your businesses like you should, I see many going about it the wrong way. Making daft mistakes you wouldn't if you knew more about why good designers do things the way they do. About the techniques they use to get right inside people's minds.

When I saw Professor Richard Wiseman's brilliant video "The Amazing Colour Changing Card Trick" everything fell into place. It's a superb study into deception. Because right in front of your very eyes Professor Wiseman tricks you not just once but a total of four, yes 4, times. Now, you see every one of them happen. But you don't notice any. Marvellous! So much so, it proved the inspiration for my workshop "Inside Customers' Minds".

Your attention has a mind of its own

Magicians are masters of managing attention. Their skill is how they manipulate it so we can't see what they're doing. Now I'm no cognitive psychologist but Innattentional Blindness helps explain what's going on.

Innattentional Blindness is a scientific term that refers to lapses in perception. Lapses that have nothing to do with vision defects or illness. Lapses that mean healthy people fail to recognise things in plain sight. Why? Well, Innattentional Blindness is "the inability of the human mind to process anything not the direct focus of attention at that moment". Or to put it another way there's no conscious perception without attention.

Richard Wiseman's video fools us superbly. It's shocking just how much he gets away with. How much we don't see that's in plain sight. And that's really important when it comes to marketing comms. Because Innattentional Blindness means if you're not what's on someone's mind - if you're not the goal of their attention – they simply won't see you.

EXCUSE ME!

How do you get someone's attention when they're not listening? How can you get them to see you when they're not looking? How do you get them to notice what you're saying?

Interesting questions when you think about marketing comms. Because you can't raise your voice and say "EXCUSE ME!" Can't tap them on the shoulder so they look and listen. Can't wave your hand in front of their face and point. Can't do anything physical to distract and wrench them from their ‘blindness'.

The only distraction, the only way you've got of interrupting them, is through your comms – the actual material itself. So it becomes all about design and the means used to convey it. The question is how?

A Stone-Age mind in modern skull

Evolution's a slow process. It's measured in 100,000's of years. So while we live in the 21st Century we're doing it with a brain wired for 98,000 B.C. Now if you take the birth of civilisation as when farming started some 10,000 years ago, 100,000 years is a long time back. A time when we were hunter-gatherers lucky to live past 30 and scraping by on our wits. A tough time when a good day was just the fact you were having another.

Evolutionary psychologists would point out we Stone-Age humans had to be good at all sorts of things. Like hunting animals, foraging for food, choosing good habitat, living in tribes - defending ourselves against others, and having and raising children – you get the picture. The issue is it's the best at these that survived and bred – and we are descended from them. So quite naturally, their traits are in us.

But while it would be easy to dismiss these skills as primitive they're anything but. Some are especially sophisticated and complex. And you could hardly claim the human race hasn't thrived. We seem to cope pretty well even in the world of today. So they've done us well and continue to do so. But all that said they have consequences. Consequences for the way we're wired to think. Consequences for our natural sensitivities and instincts. Implications for what grabs our attention - what connects with our reflexes and what we quite literally can't ignore.

Wired

When survival's the only thing that matters it's no surprise we're wired in certain ways. Research shows we're really good at spotting animals and faces against natural backgrounds. Far better than just differences in natural backgrounds themselves. It's also believed we're more sensitive to noticing dangerous animals like predators, snakes, spiders than safer creatures like rabbits, goats and birds.

We're good at noticing changes in our surroundings - is there a threat? We're really sensitive to social dynamics, body language and expressions - is everyone getting on, what are they looking at over there and can I trust this stranger? We notice bright colours – research shows red has the highest visibility. We're fascinated by new and novel things – are they useful or dangerous? And we're especially wired for danger. So sudden noises, flashes, movements, bad smells – these are all things that make us jump and recoil. Make our instincts kick-in to protect us.

Interesting stuff, but what does it all mean for marketing communications?

Inside Customer's Minds

My workshop at our 2016 Open Day goes into this in detail. It spells out the links between how our minds work and how to get inside them through marketing communications. To understand we'd suggest you watch the video.

But if you need a thumbnail here it is. To get inside others' heads your communications must grab and fascinate their attention. Grabbing attention means using designs that disrupt and spark reflexes. Think bright colours, images of faces, flashing and movement to name a few. Fascinating attention means stirring interest, captivating and surprising. Think curious displays, beautiful images and personalisation to name a few. These are the kinds of things the video goes into a lot more. They're all things that play to how are minds work and the things we find hard to ignore.

Stupid Marketing and How to Stop It

What's the biggest enemy to great marketing comms? What's the best way to build stupid designs? Create cool ones. Cool has nothing to do with how effective something is. Cool didn't exist 100,000 years ago. Cool didn't drive our evolution. All cool is, is an opinion. Cool is someone's own views on how ‘good' something looks. Their views using their measures. All things that have been learned, not inherited. Things that are just the whim of fashion. Or the influence of peers.

So while you might create marketing fit-for-purpose, if that's because you think it's cool you're being dumb. Great marketing comms stems from getting "Inside Customer's Minds". It comes from using the triggers that spark attention and those that nurture it once won – the very things we've touched on in this post and examine in depth in my workshop. Because when all is said and done the only thing that matters about marketing comms isn't whether they're pretty, cool or nice, it's that they work. That they get noticed and spark interest.

Real men don't eat quiche

We've yet to meet an IT technician or programmer great at graphic design and writing copy. So if you're out there, you're a very rare beast. Techies can't do marketing. This isn't a criticism, it's plain recognition of how different types of people are great at different things.

It's not weakness to be poor at certain things, what is, is denying you are. You can't excel in everything it takes to own and run a thriving small IT business. There's simply too much to know, be skilled at and have the aptitude for. So don't pretend you can. And don't beat yourself because you can't. Surround yourself with others who can do what you can't. And learn. Get to know your limits.

Lastly, to help you get to grips with what these designer types know take a look at a couple of posts on my blog "ShopTalk": "How to Design Posters and Signs" and "How to Design Leaflets". They may not turn you into a great designer, but at least you'll know more about what they do and why.