It reveals enough to draw attention and hides enough make you want more. It’s the car you can’t afford, the club you can’t get in, and the magic trick you can’t figure out. Dying to know what I’m talking about? That’s Mystique, aka the Bikini Factor — the art of fascination through curiosity. Some people have more mystique than others. And it turns out, personal injury lawyers have it in spades.
Recently, 100’s of personal injury lawyers from all over the country received exclusive access to Sally Hogshead’s Fascination Advantage personality test. When the results were analyzed, of the seven universal fascination triggers used by all people, the two most often used by lawyers are POWER and MYSTIQUE.
Power is no surprise. Anyone who’s ever seen A Few Good Men understands that lawyers have power. But Mystique? According to Hogshead, people with mystique are “understated, complex, and deliberate.” We had to think about that one because here at cj Advertising, we make direct response lawyer commercials all day, every day. One thing we know for sure is that being “understated” doesn’t make the phone ring. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
Fortunately, there’s more to Mystique than being understated. To take full advantage of this complex psychological trigger, cj’s inner sanctum made Mystique the topic for one of our regular creative roundtables. Our purpose was to identify examples where this device is already working in our ads and brainstorm new ways to use Mystique going forward. We concluded that in both cases, the key ingredient is “curiosity.”
For instance, when a series of actual clients tell how great the law firm is without saying why… that fascinates through curiosity. Or when a lawyer talks about winning three times more money, without revealing how… that fascinates through curiosity. And I could give you a video example of Mystique in some of our newer ads, but that would go against one of Sally Hogshead’s main tenets of Mystique: “do not over communicate.” Please satisfy your curiosity by checking back for my next post.
Until next time, here’s a fun list of people, places, and things that succeed by marketing with Mystique:
(Not necessarily in order of preference)
Harley-Davidson
Playboy Magazine
Victoria’s Secret
KISS (the band)
Johnny Cash
Jack Nicholson
The Queen of England
Corvette
Oakland Raiders
New York Yankees
Jägermeister
Pop Rocks candy
Absinthe
Red Bull
Apple Computers
Louis Vuitton
The Masters Golf Tournament
Cuban cigars
Hard Rock Café
Blair Witch Project
The Freemasons
The Central Intelligence Agency
The Mafia
Batman
The Vatican
