 WARNING: you'll never un-see what I'm going to show you now. Once I share it with you, you might even feel manipulated, duped and a little grubby. Please don't. Instead, use this clever trick to:
Okay, here goes.... FACT: Boris Johnson routinely (and shamelessly) uses proven psychology tricks to penetrate our minds. Need proof? Okay, look at these 3 famous BJ sentences: "Get Brexit done!" "Stay home. Protect the NHS. Save lives." "Stay alert. Control the virus. Save lives." And yesterday, as he announced his £5 billion rebuild plan for Britain, he declared: ".. we will build build build. Build back better. Build back greener. Build back stronger." Can you spot his clever - and somewhat overused - psychological gameplay? It's a communications trope that every living publicist and copywriter swears by. I use it for client work every day. Got it? Okay... in short, Boris Johnson and his administration are experts in the dark art of The Rule of 3.  What is The Rule of 3? To explain this powerful sorcery, look at the famous brand slogans below, but this time, count the number of words in each one: "Just do it" - Nike "I'm loving it" - McDonald's "Ultimate driving machine" - BMW "Always Coca-Cola" - Coca-Cola "Taste the rainbow" - Skittles "Finger lickin' good!" - KFC "I'll be back!" - Arnie "Every little helps" - Tesco "Snap! Crackle! Pop!" - aw, so cute PLEASE NOTE: I've deliberately used a mix of old and new slogans here... hell, I even threw-in the most famous 3-words in movie history. Why? Purely to demonstrate that as a communications technique, The Rule of 3 is as old as the hills and as powerful as a bull (or Cyborg) The Rule of 3 is the ultimate communications power-move. Brands love it. Publicists love it. Copywriters love it. Advertisers love it. Hollywood loves it. Most critical of all, humans are deeply receptive to it.  Why is The Rule of 3 So Powerful? Arguments in favour of The Rule of 3 are many-fold, but unanimously, everyone agrees that its potency lies in the fact that 3 is the smallest number required to make a pattern. (and don't us humans just instinctively love a pattern!) According to this copywriting studio, 'The Rule of 3 uses simple 3-element patterns to communicate complicated ideas effectively. The pattern works because it is short. Memorable. Powerful.' Let's revisit Boris Johnson's £5 billion investment announcement from earlier. It's genius, really. Please observe its wizardry: ".. we will build build build. Build back better. Build back greener. Build back stronger." I mean, the man is so brazen, that for extra punch, he crowbars two sets of 3 into one line of spiel. It would be impressive, if it wasn't so blatant. SET ONE: ".. build build build." SET TWO: "Build back better. Build back greener. Build back stronger." (*SET TWO is particularly clap-worthy, because it's not only 3 separate sentences, but each one comprises of 3 separate words. There's probably an award for that kind of speech-writing)  And there you have it... The Rule of 3 is so persuasive, that it can be applied to not only single words, but bunches of words, sentences, bullet points and even paragraphs. Finally, here's how this entire blog post is as guilty as Boris Johnson: Jump back to the top of this page. Read for 60-seconds non-stop, but this time, count the number of times I deliberately (and shamelessly) engaged your attention using The Rule of 3, long before I explained what it is. I'm not even sorry!  NEED HELP WITH YOUR WRITING? WE HELP BUSINESSES BY PROVIDING:
To better communicate with your audience, email us on [email protected] or click here for FREE access to our other excessively brilliant writing & communications articles.
1 Comment
Gove Cummings
6/7/2022 13:53:11
The rule of three doesn't exist its actually the two spaces between the three that creates the psychological trick . The length of time like a rhythmn. This article is poorly researched Leave a Reply. |
Categories
All
Archives
February 2025
|
RSS Feed