Your Points Never Expire!!!

What are the cues that make your ears perk up, that make you click to learn more about an issue or offer? It feels like the compulsion to click is so much stronger as the algorithmns that control our lives become more and more insightful and sophisticated. It's no coincidence that while you're looking for a handheld work light your hardware store membership triggers a special offer to your inbox but leaving aside the manipulative nature of marketing and selling, what makes you want more?

I was recently in a hotel elevator and every time I rode it my eyes were drawn to the promotional poster: "your points never expire", which led to an inevitable mental review of all the points programs in which I'm enrolled and which of those can make the same claim. Just the kind of mental busywork that ruins an otherwise lovely getaway!

It stands to reason that anything arriving in your inbox, or catching your eye, which addresses something you have been thinking about, worrying about, or wanting to explore, will prompt you to take that next step but what if there is no underlying need or drive?

Are there universal word triggers that motivate us to act, if only to get that teeny bit more information? Traditionally the most powerful word in marketing and in communications in general is YOU. FREE is also a biggie albeit fraught with reluctance because really, if something is free, is it really any good? NEW and IMPROVED are on the list for marketing but my sense is we're all so tired of everything new because it means throwing out old and learning a whole new way of doing something. The waste itself is a turnoff.

Appeals to HEALTH and SAFETY have always worked as they cut straight to the heart of our daily anxieties about our bodies and our world. We all carry around a whiff of paranoia and hypochondria; it's almost unavoidable.

Which brings us to LOVE and EASY, not necessarily in that order, or combined. All roads lead to LOVE; it's the destination and the purpose. It's the motivator for so much of self-improvement, not for the self, but for the sake of the elusive other. So many choices are tangled up with the search for LOVE which is equated with the search for ultimate happiness. The house, the car, the vacation destination. Which one will lead to love and happiness?