You glance at your watch.

It’s 6:28. You’ve been at it since 3.
Crap. Your hot date is at 7. Running late. Sink shower it is.
Nowhere close to done editing…

“…at least all the ideas are laid out, so there’s that. Did I miss anything? I don’t think so? Ok, but how do I make it flow? I need to get the final draft to Stacey for design asap, team cutoff is at noon Thursday…”

You’ve spent dinner completely distracted. Your date just took off. You go home exhausted, plod to your desk, and flip open the laptop.

Or… what if:

5:41 — you’re out of the shower and lip-syncing.
6:17 — dressed to the nines and zenned out.
7:03 — the sunset glints off your aviators as you smile hello.
8:36 — it actually feels like you’re hitting it off. Not just hot, funny to boot.
Next morning, 9:27 — final draft ready in your inbox.
10:31 — Stacey messages back, “thanks, looks good!”

The difference?

Copygloss handled it. Before you left for the date, actually.

For help with editing, email Dan:
[email protected].

VW’s “You earn too much” Ad

Classic VW copy, with that curt tone and reverse psychology.

The story arc: we disarm a common objection (the car as an expensive status symbol), talk about the features we’d find in the “best” car (visualizing your experience with it in the future), then introduce FOMO at the end (your future financial well-being).

And that last part is what makes this a masterpiece. Clinical execution.

It’s hijacking your animal brain by pitting 1) your loss against 2) another’s gain.

Firstly, loss. We feel loss much more strongly than we feel gain. (Approximately 2x more strongly according to prospect theory by Daniel Kahneman, RIP). The copy makes you visualize your current status quo — paying interest on an expensive car loan (not VW) — as the loss.

And secondly? It exposes whatever insecurities you may have surrounding your finances. How? By giving that gain to some other person. They’re the one saving their money with the VW, not you.

Now it’s plugged into your jealousy. In caveman terms: “That guy got more than me! Uh-oh, he steal my mate.”

If you had imagined yourself with that gain first, with no other person present? Not quite the same.

So what just happened?

“Look at this person, saving money with the smart choice. So smart, in fact, that it’s actually what makes your poorer one possible — well, if you choose to keep doing it, that is.”

They’ve created a zero-sum game through juxtaposition.

In reality, if you dissect it logically, it isn’t zero-sum. Many (most? who knows…) things in life aren’t. In this example, the bank also holds other people’s money too, so precisely whose money you’d be borrowing for a car loan is moot.

But that doesn’t matter here. It’s the strong image that taps into our emotions. It’s our emotions that are ultimately driving most our decisions, which we rationalize after the fact with logic.

So without deeper inspection, the only thing our animal brain registers is that maintaining the status quo sets us back while helping our rivals.

And luckily for us, the fix is simple:

Buy a VW 😉.