Monday Memo

A Byte of Knowledge

A promise is easy to make when the product’s still in your head.

It’s clean.

It’s perfect.

It hasn’t been battle-tested by reality yet.

But once that promise is out in the wild, it creates a ticking clock.

Customers expect delivery.

Teams shift priorities.

Your entire timeline reorients around something that may not even be feasible yet.

One missing piece.

One delay.

One unforeseen hiccup…

And suddenly, what felt like a brilliant carrot to get your customers watering at the mouth...

Becomes a credibility crisis.

So don’t promise what isn’t built. (or at least what isn't close to being built)

Don’t sell the future version.

Don’t bet your trust on a product that’s still in development.

Instead, only promise what’s ready to ship.

Because speed gets attention.

But trust is what keeps your customers coming back over and over again.

🚀 Whether you're selling a $7 ebook or a $30,000 coaching program – having these 5 'Copy Blocks' in your ads could be the difference between crickets and cash registers.

Discover All 5 'Copy Blocks' Now

Something to Ponder

We Asked – AI Answered

Our Question: 

"Why do magic shows and tricks still amaze us even when we know we're being fooled? What does this tell us about human psychology?"

AI's Answer:

🧠 1. Your Brain Isn’t Built to See the Truth

We don't see reality.We see a compressed, filtered, and biased simulation of it.

According to psychologist Daniel Simons (co-author of The Invisible Gorilla), our attention is so narrow that we routinely miss huge changes in front of us if we’re not looking for them.

Study: In the famous selective attention test, 50% of viewers completely missed a man in a gorilla suit walking through a basketball game because they were focused on counting passes.

Magic exploits this. By manipulating your attention, the magician controls your version of reality.

MARKETING TAKEAWAY: Your customers aren't seeing your product with full attention or logic. They're seeing what their attention and biases let them see. This is why framing, timing, and storytelling dominate features and facts.

🪄 2. We Crave Surprise and Coherence—Even at the Cost of Truth

We are prediction machines, as neuroscientist Anil Seth puts it.The brain constantly builds models of what should happen next.

When something violates that model (like a coin disappearing midair), your brain panics. It wants to explain it. But can’t.

Instead of rejecting the experience, the brain defaults to awe.

This is called the “Violation of Expectation” principle—first studied in infants by Baillargeon et al., showing that even babies stare longer when physical laws seem to break.

We love it. The surprise hits our dopamine system (reward), while the mystery activates the anterior cingulate cortex (attention and conflict resolution).

MARKETING TAKEAWAY: Surprise is more than entertainment. It's how you bypass skepticism. That's why copywriting greats like Gary Halbert used unusual openers, and headlines that stop your pattern.

🧠 3. The Brain Will Invent a Lie Before It Admits Ignorance

This one’s brutal: Your brain is allergic to “I don’t know.”

Instead of admitting it was fooled, it confabulates—filling in gaps with false logic. This is why people often claim, “I know how he did that” (when they don’t).

Neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga’s split-brain studies revealed how the left hemisphere makes up explanations for actions it didn’t initiate—just to preserve a sense of coherence.

This mechanism keeps us sane… but it also keeps us vulnerable to illusion.

MARKETING TAKEAWAY:Prospects will rationalize buying a product even if their decision was emotional. Build the emotional moment—then give them the logic to justify it after.

🎭 4. We Want to Be Fooled

Here's the paradox: We go to magic shows wanting to be deceived.

Psychologist Paul Ekman (known for microexpression studies) found that audiences exhibit something called “suspension of disbelief”—they allow themselves to overlook inconsistencies to enjoy the narrative.

This also shows up in film, fiction, and… yes, branding.

🔍 Final Insight: Magic Is the Purest Form of Marketing

It exposes how perception works:

• We trust our senses. We shouldn’t.
• We think we’re logical. We’re not.
• We crave certainty—but live on guesses.
• And we’ll pay handsomely to be delighted by the deception.

A magician’s toolkit is no different from a top-tier marketer’s.

Thanks for reading the Monday Memo.

Until next time!

The AI Marketers

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