Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation »

Sally Hogshead helps world-class businesses develop messages that influence and persuade consumers, partners, and employees. Starting out as one of the most award-winning advertising writers in the country, she is today a world-renowned brand consultant and speaker, leading keynotes for companies such as Starbucks and Microsoft as well as innovation workshops. As a creative director, she develops fascinating ideas for both Fortune 500 companies and start-ups. Hogshead and her work have been featured in the New York Times and on the Today show, CBS, ABC, and MSNBC.

What triggers fascination, and how do companies, people, and ideas put those triggers to use?

Why are you captivated by some people but not by others? Why do you recall some brands yet forget the rest? In a distracted, overcrowded world, how do certain leaders, friends, and family members convince you to change your behavior? Fascination: the most powerful way to influence decision making. It's more persuasive than marketing, advertising, or any other form of communication. And it all starts with seven universal triggers: lust, mystique, alarm, prestige, power, vice, and trust.

Fascination plays a role in every type of decision making, from the brands you choose to the songs you remember, from the person you marry to the employees you hire. And by activating the right triggers, you can make anything become fascinating.

To explore and explain fascination's irresistible influence, Sally Hogshead looks beyond marketing, delving into behavioral and social studies, historical precedents, neurobiology and evolutionary anthropology, as well as conducting in-depth interviews and a national study of a thousand consumers, to emerge with deeply rooted patterns for why, and how, we become captivated.

Hogshead reveals why the Salem witch trials began with the same fixations as those in Sex and the City. How Olympic athletes are subject to obsessions similar to those of fetishists. How a 1636 frenzy over Dutch tulip bulbs perfectly mirrors the 2006 real estate bubble. And why a billion-dollar "Just Say No" program actually increased drug use among teens, by activating the same "forbidden fruit" syndrome as a Victoria's Secret catalog.

Whether you realize it or not, you're already using the seven triggers. The question is, are you using the right triggers, in the right way, to get your desired result? This book will show you.

Publishers Weekly

Brand executive Hogshead (Radical Careering) argues that exploiting certain "triggers" can boost relationships with customers, employees, and friends. Fascination is ultimately an instinctive drive that catalyzes countless behaviors, including purchasing decisions. Outlining seven triggers which "bring meaning to all types of otherwise meaningless scenarios," the author reveals how powerful brands like FedEx, Walt Disney World Theme Park and W Hotels combine such triggers as lust, power, mystique, and trust in different proportions to reel in consumers or reinforce messaging. Despite an uneven start, this slight but practical work packs a big punch.
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Preface: Witchcraft, Green Peas, and Sigmund Freud

Introduction What Is "Fascination," Exactly?

Pt. I Fascinate or Fail

The Big O: Speaking of Fascination, Let's Start with Sex, Shall We? 3

Your Fascinating Face: Why You Were Born Knowing Exactly How to Persuade 19

Fascination and the Media: Trends Driving the Need for a New Form of Persuasion 31

The Gold Hallmarks of a Fascinating Message: How Do You Evaluate Whether Something Is Fascinating? 39

How Fascinating Are You? Applying Fascination to Your Personality and Brand 49

Pt. II The Seven Fascination Triggers

Lust: Why We're Seduced by the Anticipation of Pleasure 89

Mystique: Why We're Intrigued by Unanswered Questions 85

Alarm: Why We Take Action at the Threat of Negative Consequences 101

Prestige: Why We Fixate on Symbols of Rank and Respect 117

Power: Why We Focus on the People and ThingsThat Control Us 133

Vice: Why We're Tempted by "Forbidden Fruit" 149

Trust: Why We're Loyal to Reliable Options 167

Pt. III The Fascination Plan of Attack

Stage 1 Evaluation - How Fascinating Are Your Company and Message? 193

Stage 2 Development - Create and Heighten Fascination 207

Stage 3 Execution - Bringing Your Fascination to Life 223

Appendix The Kelton Fascination Study 231

Author's Note 243

Fascination at a Glance 245

Sources 251

Acknowledgments 256

Index 257