Page 179 - The Apple Experience

The Brain Does Not Pay Attention to Boring Things

No matter how sensational you think your product is, nobody is going to care

if the message you’re using to communicate the product’s benefits is dry,

confusing, and convoluted. Neuroscientist John Medina taught me that the
brain does not pay attention to boring things. It is simply not programmed to

grasp abstract concepts.

Instead he recommends creating an emotionally charged event, which is

the equivalent of a mental Post-it Note for the brain. Medina says the brain’s

amygdala is chockful of the neurotransmitter dopamine. So when the brain

detects an emotionally charged event (e.g., joy, fear, surprise), the amygdala

releases dopamine into the system that greatly aids memory and information
processing. Let’s recall three of Jobs’s emotionally charged events:

1984: The Ad and the Launch

When it came time to launch the Macintosh, the machine that

revolutionized personal computers, Jobs wanted a television spot that would

put a stamp on people’s minds. The ad agency Chiat/Day developed the

famous Big-Brother-themed “1984” ad, which ran only once during Super

Bowl XVIII. More than 90 million people saw the ad, and it became the

most admired television ad for the next two decades. Amazingly, the ad was
nearly scrapped. When Jobs previewed the ad for the Apple board in

December 1983, they hated it. Apple CEO John Sculley admitted he got

cold feet. Jobs eventually won the argument, of course, but the story reminds

us that Jobs intuitively understood the power of emotion in building a brand.

The 1984 television ad wasn’t the only wow moment Jobs had up his

sleeve. In what is still considered one of the most dramatic reveals of any