If you are a CMO, Marketing Director or Marketing Manager and you are looking to use video in your 2023 marketing campaigns - then there is one video marketing concept that you must leverage in order to maximize effectiveness. And that concept is: intrigue.
How do we define the effectiveness of any marketing campaign, video or not? By measuring action. We create a campaign with the intention of generating some type of customer action.
It can be as simple as a like or comment or as complex as a contact form or purchase. But if we are smart then it is action that we are after. And the more specific that target action, the more effectively we can measure the success of our campaign. (But that's a concept for another post).
So let's now examine the most successful way to generate action, by starting with all human action and tracing it backwards to its fundamental root: emotion.
How People Make Decisions
Humans are naturally emotional beings more than we are logical. In fact, Antonio Damasio, a neuroscientist, made a significant finding some years ago: He conducted research on individuals who had brain damage. They appeared to be normal, but he discovered that they were incapable of feeling emotions. What was fascinating was another trait they all shared: they were incapable of making decisions.
They could rationally explain what they ought to be doing, yet they struggled to decide on even the most basic matters, like what to eat. They could explain the choice logically, but could not actually make the decision. They couldn't take action.
Emotions are therefore crucial at the time of decision. In fact, it's arguable that emotion always plays a leading role in the decision-making process, even when we think we're making logical choices.
Emotion always plays a leading role in the decision-making process, even when we think we're making logical choices.
One of the strongest emotions in existence is desire. Whether it's fueled by habit, love, fear, addiction etc... desire is at the center of most of our daily behaviors.
To summarize: human beings take action because of an emotional cue to satisfy a desire. So the question we really need to ask ourself, is how do we generate that first emotional cue?
Human beings take action because of an emotional cue to satisfy a desire.
So what is most effective gateway to generate that emotional cue?
Whether you're creating a new desire or to arousing an existing one, one of the most effective ways to start a person on the journey to action is human curiosity.
How Human Curiosity Works
Curiosity is defined as a strong desire to know or learn something. Curiosity is therefore the spark that ignites desire. If we want to generate action in a human being, the quickest way to set them on that path is to arouse their curiosity.
Which brings us to the concept of Intrigue. Intrigue literally means "to arouse curiosity." If the messaging of a marketing campaign (in any form) does not generate any Intrigue, it will not be very effective.
Intrigue literally means "to arouse curiosity." If the messaging of a marketing campaign (in any form) does not generate any Intrigue, it will not be very effective.
Have you ever run a campaign that didn't generate the results you predicted?
Have you ever been confused when an "exciting" and even "entertaining" video generated unimpressive results.
Have you ever seen a seemingly less provocative headline or slogan outperform one that you thought would be a killer?
Go back and examine them again - I would bet that the issue was a lack of Intrigue.
Again, the goal of all marketing is to generate action.
Take a look at the chart below - by examining a few definitions we can clearly see the link between intrigue and action.
Intrigue -> Curiosity -> Desire -> Action
Intrigue: verb to arouse the curiosity or interest of; fascinate.
Curiosity: noun a strong desire to know or learn something.
Desire: noun a strong feeling of wanting to have something
Action: noun the fact or process of doing something, typically to acquire something or achieve an aim.
If you want something to DO something, they need to DESIRE it. If you want someone to DESIRE something, they need to first be CURIOUS about it. And if you want sometime to be CURIOS about something, you need to INTRIGUE them.
How to Leverage Human Curiosity In Marketing
Let's discuss how to generate Intrigue. In other worse, how exactly do we arouse curiosity? This is a neurological topic that literally has volumes of books written about it, so we won't go too deeply here.
The most basic principle is that human beings tend to be more curious about things they are unfamiliar with. We tend to ignore patterns and let the unconscious part of our brain process them.
Our brain is constantly processing information and deciding whether it should be processed in the thinking part of the brain (the cerebral cortex) or the unconscious/emotional part of the brain (the amygdala).
The Amygdala
The amygdala cannot think. The amygdala merely searches for patterns or particular combinations of sensory inputs, and if it recognizes a pattern, it builds an emotional response based on those patterns.
This means that if you want to get past the amygdala, which ignores 99% of sensory input, you need to provide sensory input that is outside of those existing patterns. In simpler terms, in order to effectively generate Intrigue, you need to surprise the prospects brain so you get the persons conscious attention.
In order to effectively generate Intrigue, you need to surprise the prospects brain so you get the persons conscious attention.
How much extra time did you spend looking at the first picture in this post to understand why there is a fish in the trees? 3 seconds of conscious thought? 5 seconds?
It's not even a very well photoshopped image, but it won your conscious attention for enough time to get passed your amygdala and allow you to actually "decide" you wanted to read this post, didn't it? And WHY? Because you are Intrigued.
And that Intrigue has aroused your curiosity -> And your curiosity has engaged a desire to have a more effective video marketing campaign in 2023 -> And that desire will bring you to take a certain action to move in its direction; Whether it's to reconsider revising your 2023 video plans on your own, or to hire a video production agency to do it for you.
The Medium is NOT The Message
Video is the undisputed king of all mediums when it comes to transmitting a message in an effective way. But the medium itself is not enough to generate surprise, at least not anymore.
Years ago - if you had a video message you were one of only a few. It wasn't hard to generate Intrigue or surprise because people were not seeing thousands of video ads every day. There wasn't enough of a pattern for a persons brain to unconsciously ignore every video.
The average person simply could not afford to create a video. (At least not one that looked half decent or professional). So by just having a quality video (tv commercial in the 50s-90s, or an internet commercial in the 2000's), you were different enough to get some attention.
But nowadays every brand, every artist, every business has the ability to create a 4K video on the same device with which they order lunch. So people are now accustomed to seeing videos every single minute of every single day - and most of them look pretty damn good.
So to have an effective video marketing campaign in todays world - we must break out of that pattern, surprise the prospects brain and get their conscious attention before their amygdala takes over and files your entire message in the "unconsciously ignore" pile of the prospects mind.
We must get the prospects conscious attention before their amygdala takes over and files your entire message in the "unconsciously ignore" pile of the prospects mind.
How to Generate Intrigue
And that's where the creativity comes in. You have to create something that will instantly generate Intrigue. Something that will get the prospects conscious mind to actually process the message of the video.
Beyond that, the message itself has to be tied to an emotional desire the prospect actually has (or is likely to have). It's not enough for only one aspect of the video to be dialed-in (perceived quality, message, sound, imagery etc...). All aspects have to be well thought out, and reverse-engineered from the ultimate action you want to the prospect to take.
That is precisely why our video production agency is named Intrigue Studios. It's not enough to produce videos that look good and sound good. It's not enough to even "say" all the right things.
All that matters in the end is the action that the prospect ultimately takes. Which means that all that matters in the beginning is whether or not they start on a clear pathway to that action.
Where to Start
If you are going it on your own - start from the desired action and then work backwards to figure out the best way video can generate Intrigue right from the start and then lead the prospect there. Brainstorm a script or outline, and do your best to think like the prospect and imagine what would get their conscious attention.
Or, you might prefer to work with a professional video production agency that exists specifically to create highly effective videos for very specific results. If so, get started here to speak to one of our producers and determine if there's a fit for us to help.
Whatever you decide, here are a few key takeaway's from this post.
How do we define the effectiveness of any marketing campaign, video or not? By measuring action.
Humans are naturally emotional beings more than we are logical
Human beings take action because of an emotional cue to satisfy a desire
Whether you're creating a new desire or to arousing an existing one, one of the most effective ways to start a person on the journey to action is human curiosity.
If the messaging of a marketing campaign (in any form) does not generate any Intrigue, it will not be very effective.
If you want to get past the amygdala, which ignores 99% of sensory input, you need to provide sensory input that is outside of those existing patterns.
In order to effectively generate Intrigue, you need to surprise the prospects brain so you get the persons conscious attention. But the medium itself is not enough to generate surprise, at least not anymore.
To have an effective video marketing campaign in todays world - we must break out of that pattern, surprise the prospects brain and get their conscious attention before their amygdala takes over and files your entire message in the "unconsciously ignore" pile of the prospects mind.
All that matters in the end is the action that the prospect ultimately takes.
I hope you've found this post helpful! Feel free to leave a comment or question below! Or contact us here to start a conversation about your project.
