Crafting Memorable Campaigns with Emotional Impact, with James I Bond, Brain Glue

Unlock the secrets to commanding your worth and mastering emotional selling! Join us as we sit down with James I Bond, an author and behavioral management specialist, who takes us through his fascinating journey from an apprentice photographer in Montreal to a magnate in photography and advertising. Discover how a stolen photograph and a million-dollar lawsuit imparted invaluable lessons on valuing one’s work, and how Bond leveraged these lessons to craft compelling campaigns for giants like Seagram’s and Avon Cosmetics.

Have you ever wondered why some advertisements stay etched in your memory while others fade away? Bond unveils the magic behind emotional selling, revealing how campaigns like “This is your brain on drugs” and John Gray’s book “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” achieved phenomenal success by tapping into human emotions. Learn how to transform your marketing strategies into powerful, action-driving tools that resonate deeply with your audience. Bond’s insights into behavioral management provide practical takeaways that can help you craft messages that compel and captivate.

In an era of digital overload, how can photographers and marketers stand out? James shares inspiring success stories of photographers like Anne Geddes and Martin Handford, illustrating the significance of owning your work and creating concepts that deeply connect with audiences. From crafting attention-grabbing advertisements to maintaining consistency in your marketing efforts, discover strategies that ensure sustained success. With anecdotes from iconic branding moments, including Marilyn Monroe’s name change, this episode is packed with actionable insights on creating lasting impact in both

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Chapters

• 0:02 Photography, Advertising, and Behavioral Management
• 6:38 The Power of Emotional Selling
• 18:31 Creative Photography and Marketing Strategies
• 26:27 The Power of Emotional Advertising

Transcript

Erin Manning: 0:02

Welcome to the Dead Pixel Society podcast, the photo imaging industry's leading news source. Here's your host, Gary Pegeau.

Gary Pageau: 0:20

Pixel Society Podcast. I'm your host, Gary Pagiot. Today, we're joined by James I Bond, who's an author and behavioral management specialist, and he's coming to us from Thousand Oaks, California. Hi James, how are you today?

James I Bond: 0:32

Hi Gary, I'm great, thank you. How are you doing?

Gary Pageau: 0:35

I'm doing great. Well, you're on the podcast today to talk about behavioral management and especially management techniques and your book Brain Glue. But first you do have a photography background, which is kind of incidental to our discussion. But tell us a little bit about your work in advertising and that sort of history.

James I Bond: 0:57

Well, I'm originally from Montreal. I lived here in Southern California for 37 years because it's a little warmer down here. Let's start that, okay, in Montreal. Montreal was fun because I was an apprentice photographer when I started, okay, and I apprenticed with some world-famous photographers.

James I Bond: 1:13

This guy, Sam Haskins, who was uh in britain was he wrote this he did this book which this taught me a lot, by the way called haskins posters, and he was telling me how uh he was in Nairobi, Africa, and it suddenly noticed people coming out of a department store the major department store there with bags with his photograph on the bag okay, this photograph of this girl's face superimposed inside an apple with a b on the apple, and it was really amazing.

James I Bond: 1:42

He was an amazing photographer and he did a lot of nude stuff, by the way, which is fun to assist a photographer who does nude stuff. He was telling me that he went like, wait a second, these guys never paid anything and he discovered he was from Britain, that a bag company stole his photograph, put it on their bags and started going country to country in the world except England and they went to New York and I think they had, you know, macy's or somebody had their bags on something like that had his photograph on it, and so he ended up suing them and they ended up paying him a million dollars for one photograph. Wow.

Gary Pageau: 2:20

I'm like, wow, you can make a million dollars as a photographer.

James I Bond: 2:22

Whoa, you got a million dollars plus a percentage of every sale that they would continue to make. Right, you know he didn't stop them from making it. He said you keep making it, just send me the money. Yeah, but it taught me a lot, I mean, as a photographer. We were doing stuff for Seagram. Seagram's world headquarters is in Montreal, sure, and before I was in advertising, I was a photographer. I learned advertising to be a better photographer, so I remember. So he was doing, uh, some photographs of people and girls for Seagram's, but he was also doing a photograph of the bottle on a nice background, okay, right so he's ready to do the photograph of the bottle in a nice background.

James I Bond: 3:03

So I said you want me to get your photo, your camera? He looks at me like I'm crazy and he goes why? I said because you're a photographer, I haven't figured out what I'm going to take a picture of yet. I'm going to put the bottle down there and I'm going to examine it and do all that stuff and then, when I'm ready, the last thing I do is take a photograph and I'm like oh, okay, interesting. And it was things like that really really helped me understand. You know how to be a photographer.

James I Bond: 3:32

Later on I worked for an advertising studio and we had Avon cosmetics and later I won them in advertising and I remember I was working hard to create a photograph that they were going to really like and everything else. And they came in and they looked at it and they didn't like it and I went wait a second, I messed up. I should have created a photograph that I love, so at least we know one person loves it and then there's a good chance they'll love it. And it really changed how I started looking at photography and then advertising. I later I did photography for jay walter thompson.

James I Bond: 4:07

It's a big advertising agency, oh sure, oh, I know where they are, yeah they had craft foods, and so I remember the um art director there said I want you to go to craft foods and don't tell them you're a photographer. And I said what he said don't tell me, you're a photographer. They want point of purchase like in-store advertising, and we don't feel like doing it. We're going to get like some some of our younger guys. Everybody likes to do the video ads and the full page ads. So just go in there and tell them you know, if I could solve your problem, would you give me the contract? And I'm like, really so, yeah, and I'll tell you how much to charge them after and everything else. You just go in there and ask them questions and find out if I, if I can solve your problem, will you give me the contract. And so I said, okay, it's terrified, but okay, I have a good poker face, you know.

James I Bond: 4:52

So I went in there and I said, you know? So they sent me from J Walter Thompson and they said if I could solve your problem, would you give me the contract? And they said yeah, and they explained it to me. I went back to him and he said, yeah, charge him eighty thousand dollars. I'm like, uh, it only costs like five thousand four thousand dollars to put this whole thing together. Eighty thousand that's what they're preparing to pay. Okay, I went back and I said so and it's eighty thousand. They said, okay, yeah, we'll give you the contract.

James I Bond: 5:16

Like you know, a good poker face was like okay sure yeah, but it started me realizing and I said to him but I need graphics done also, we're doing in-store posters for salad dressing. And he said you're used to going out and practically begging people to give you work. All these studios instead. These art studios, instead you're going to be the guy who owns the project and they're going to have to pitch you instead of you're pitching them. Right, I was like that's interesting and it just changed my whole perspective on advertising and photography. I went like this is a lot more fun being the photographer I mean being the advertiser and overseeing what it's going to come up than the photographer. Right?

James I Bond: 5:58

I've had just a photographer and so I started. I moved into advertising and they told me, in fact, at J Walter Thompson, because I studied advertising, so I could do a better job of photography. So I could understand, like how are they going to use it? Then, later on, I started learning marketing, because marketing helps you do a better job of advertising, which helps you do a better job of photography. In time, I started studying behavioral management, because you know the bottom line is if you're creating an ad or a photo or whatever else.

James I Bond: 6:28

You still want people to take action. Cta, call to action how are you going to get people to take action? And I became fascinated by that, and that's what got me eventually into Brain Glue, which became like just a blockbuster.

Gary Pageau: 6:38

So let's talk about the definition first. What do you mean Because everyone uses words differently? What do you mean Because everyone uses words differently? What do you mean by behavioral management? What is your definition? When you say behavioral management, what does that mean? Getting?

James I Bond: 6:52

people to take action.

Gary Pageau: 6:53

Okay, so it is the call to action piece. It's influencing their behavior.

James I Bond: 6:59

It could be anything. It could be. How many courses do we take and we end up not implementing them, even though we love the courses, because it's outside our comfort zone, right?

James I Bond: 7:08

You know, I mean it's. So we go like, oh, wow, this is really great, I'd love to do this. Oh, wow, goodness, other course, I got to take two. Oh, this is really great, you know. And we end up not implementing things. And so we focus on the implementation. How do you get people to implement, Not just selling, but in all levels of how do you get people to take action? And so let me give you an example with Brain Glue how I got into Brain Glue, because this explains a lot of that.

James I Bond: 7:32

I have famous people that work with me. Warren Buffett's team work with me because he started buying companies and he wanted people to love selling. We didn't just do that, we did it for management or whatever else. You know delegating. Some people are terrible delegators and you want to train them to delegate in a way that changes their mind, a mind. You know behavioral management way.

James I Bond: 7:53

I worked my way up in Montreal originally and I had major clients like Kraft Foods, timex Watches, abbott Laboratories, seagram's and stuff like that that I was doing advertising work for and I had the opportunity to win the anti-drug campaign in America with powerful logical reasons why you should not do drugs. I'm a logical guy. I'm a photographer. I have a logic. Tell me what you want a photograph of and everything else. By the way, this changed my mind and you want to go emotional, not logical. The best photographs are. I did. Zig Ziglar said this. I went to one of his workshops when I was younger and it changed my life because he said, selling is nothing more than a transference of passion If you're passionate about something. That's what I realized as a photographer. I got to love the photographs of what I do. If I don't love the photographs, how am I going to sell? Sure, okay. So I had the opportunity to win the anti-drug campaign with powerful logical reasons why you should not do drugs.

James I Bond: 8:48

Logic is bad, it turns out, and I lost, and I lost the advertising campaign and I deserve to lose it Now. They love the logical approach I had until they saw the other one, and the other one was a guy holding an egg saying this is your brain and cracking the shell and dropping the egg Frying pan. This is your brain on drugs, any questions? When I saw that it scared me. I went this is profoundly more powerful than any of the logical things I came up with. It's emotional selling, not logical selling. It's not logical, it's emotional. They don't teach it in school. How do you do emotional selling? And I really. I first I panicked, but the scientists in me came out and said well, maybe I could figure this out, okay. So next to my computer I put a box and I call it the passion box right and on a three by five card I wrote the words your brain on drugs.

James I Bond: 9:39

So I'd remember that ad, because that ad, you know it really affected me it was profound, and yet I didn't know everyone still remembers that, and that was gosh.

Gary Pageau: 9:47

It's got to be what. 40 years old now exactly.

James I Bond: 9:49

I saw you like I mean, you're shot, you're shaking your head because we all know that. You know it's amazing, but it sticks to the brain because there's something about emotional selling that sticks to the brain. I started my wife hated going to, uh, doctor's offices with me because I pick up a magazine in a doctor's office that I don't normally read, like Vogue magazine or something like that, and I go, oh, wow, and she'd go do not tear it out of the magazine. I go no, no, look at this, it's amazing, I've got to put it in my passion box and she'd sit far away like I do not know that guy.

James I Bond: 10:19

Okay, but so after about 10 years we had moved, I met John Gray and John Gray was telling me about a book he wrote called Men, women and Relationships, and he was frustrated because he said people who read the book found it to be one of the best, one of the most incredible relationship books they'd ever read. Right, but almost nobody was buying it Right. And he got this crazy idea what if I change the title to Men Are From Mars, women Are From Venus?

Gary Pageau: 10:48

Right, right, yeah, yeah.

James I Bond: 10:50

And change the content just a little bit, put references to it throughout the book, but otherwise it's exactly the same book. What do you think happened?

Gary Pageau: 10:57

almost overnight.

James I Bond: 10:58

Everyone knows right you know how many books he sold. I couldn't believe this. Okay, in my book I've got a mistake. You know, overnight he sold half a million, then a million and two million and five million in my book because I did lots of research on it and he talked to me, he, I said he sold 10 million books. Well, I know steve harrison who helped him with marketing and said no, no, no. I said well, steve, I did the work. What are you saying less? No, no. He's already had over 50 million books sold. He went from 20 000 to 50 million books sold, all because he changed the title like wow. And so when I got home I'm going to take the book and I was going to put the book you know, metaphor from venus in my passion box and I suddenly realized, wait a second, this is a metaphor. Men aren't really from a different planet.

James I Bond: 11:43

I mean at least some people, some women think we are, by the way, that's exactly okay. I'm sorry, darling there. You know, but you know. But no, we're not really from a different planet, although sometimes we act like we are right. But you know. But it's a metaphor. And then I realized this is your brain on drugs. The first thing I saw, with cracking the show, is a metaphor. Also, they're probably sitting around a table and they're going okay, what happens when you take drugs? Well, it fries your brain. Okay, what else gets fried Eggs? Oh, let's do an egg frying and say there's your brain on drugs.

James I Bond: 12:19

And that's how they came up with the concept and I went like, wow, is metaphors the secret to emotional selling, or at least one of the secrets? So when I got home, I dumped the passion box on my bed because I had to check it out, because I have so many examples, and I discovered that metaphors is one of 14 brain triggers at the heart of emotional selling. I thought my brain was going to explode because I have clients. I said, hey, let me try this on some of my clients. I had these guys, three guys who had a construction company who, after 10 years, had $2 million of sales. That's not bad right, $2 million of sales In one year. I took them from 2 to 10 million in sales in one year and they reached 32 million two years later. All because I applied brain glue. I went like, hey, let's change how we describe what you are to prospects and their sales exploded like gangbusters. And it just made me realize this is like I started applying it with me, made me realize like this is like you know. I started applying it with me, I started selling.

James I Bond: 13:12

You know, as a photographer, I love photography, so I can do photography and stuff like that, but I get to apply other things and for me, brain glue um, I had a pet supplement I was selling and suddenly I just tweaked things that I was doing with the pet supplement and we went past you know a million dollars of sales. I started realizing like I'm a millionaire, like how does that? I started freaking out. It's like I'm making more money because I figured this thing out than before. Am I doing something illegal? I mean it's like it freaked me out. It's like I mean today, hey, bring that money, you know yeah, exactly but after a million.

James I Bond: 13:45

but I was sitting, I remember calling my wife and I said hey, pam, american express just charged our credit card $1,000. And she said Well, shut it down, shut it down, take it off. I don't know. Wait a second. We just made 9,000, 10,011. I'm going to call you right back. I realized how much money we're making by the way, as wives go sometimes I said so no, we're making all this money from it. You know like $18,000 from the $1,000.

Gary Pageau: 14:14

Her first comment was well, spend more. Yeah, up there, spend the $2,000, right.

James I Bond: 14:16

Yeah, exactly, so I make $18,000 on one and I make $20,000. So it just was amazing. But I realized like this is really powerful. Now I do volunteer work for the US Small Business Administration and I get audiences between 20 and 400 or 500 people at a time and so I teach a lot of people this. I actually started teaching them before I wrote the book where I started understanding this works and people started applying it and coming back to me and saying, like this, I became a millionaire. This woman with a health care company and this other, I mean it's just people started going like wow, I can't believe how, like, I make it a fortune because I'm applying this.

James I Bond: 14:53

And it's one of the things that people read Brain Glue. This is the thing that happened. I didn't invent brain glue. I discovered Brain Glue. I created it up with the name brain glue. But people who read the book go. After you read the book, you go oh, and you start recognizing it in different places. I'll give you a crazy example.

James I Bond: 15:12

Okay, if the glove doesn't fit, you have to acquit OJ Simpson. Okay, he used poetry to get the jury. I remember at the you know, of course, oj you know was showing how hard it was getting that glove on. Okay, you know whatever. But I remember two of the jurors after the trial were asked with all that evidence against OJ, why do you find them not guilty? And one of them says it while the other one's nodding her head in agreement. Well, we knew if the gloves don't fit, you must acquit. Guess what? The gloves didn't fit, so we had to acquit, right. I mean, it's so powerful that when you start realizing these tools, first you start recognizing them, but then when you start applying them, it just has a tremendous impact. You know, I mean, it's just, it's amazing, it's lots of fun.

Gary Pageau: 15:56

So you mentioned 14 triggers. I mean I don't think we have time to go through all 14 triggers right. What are, like, some of the key ones that people who are like in the photo industry should be mindful of for getting that emotional? Because, you know, selling photography products is all is emotional, right, because, whether it is, you know, it's it's your kids memories, it's your, it's uh, you know uh, nostalgia that's, it's a lot of things. So what are some of the triggers that are suitable for that?

James I Bond: 16:53

Well, there are two pieces of it. One is what kind of photographs do you make? Okay, and then the second one is how do you define it? It might have a title, or a title of a book, or a title of a product, or whatever else. Okay, and so those are the two areas you want to focus on. I'll say the first thing is metaphors.

James I Bond: 17:10

You know, it's just like what. Okay, so when you do that, it's just like so-and-so. Let me give you an example of the product name. But it's a crazy product name, but it worked.

James I Bond: 17:21

Paul Tran invented an electric razor for man's private areas I don't want to get too much into this, but okay, and he wanted to come up with a name that would help people understand what the product does. But he didn't want to offend anyone, you know, because this man's private area is shaving. So what did he come up with? So he came up with a metaphor. It's just like a lawnmower. Why don't I call the product the lawnmower?

James I Bond: 17:46

In fact, sales took off. He's got hundreds of millions of dollars of sales. Okay, sales exploded. And off, he's got hundreds of millions of dollars of sales. Okay, sales exploded. And he ended up changing the name of his company to manscape we're landscaping a man with a lawnmower. Okay, I mean now if I bought, uh, one of his products, if I bought his lawnmower, I could see myself. You know, I didn't, but I could see myself calling a friend and say, hey, just guess what I just bought what? Hey, gary, just what I just bought what? A lawnmower. The lawnmower, what you have to mow your lawn? No, it's for shaving man's private areas Because he attorney to your girlfriend or your wife and saying, hey, guess what James has bought? What the lawnmower what is, yes, the most long, no, it's the most body. But it sticks to the brain and people just like, wow, you know, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's so powerful.

James I Bond: 18:32

There are famous photographers. We'll talk about photographers for a second. One of the things that bothered me about photography is I could do a great photograph and then sell it to somebody. But today especially, there's so many photograph sites where you can buy it for a buck. You can buy a photograph and it's really good and all that stuff, and so it's really fun to create a product around your photography. There are famous photographers, like Ann Geddes, who did the baby photographs, sure, and then she realized, sort of like the guy I work with, the famous photographer, and he suddenly put it on a bag and suddenly it became successful.

Gary Pageau: 19:08

Yeah, so there's the whole merchandising aspect of it, and so suddenly you can go on reading cards, you can go on.

James I Bond: 19:13

You know, you can make millions of dollars off one photograph, okay, yeah. And so I always remember the story of this guy, uh, martin hanford, and he's in england and he would draw complex photographs of all these people and everything else, and so advertisers and he loved it, he was fabulous at it, but advertisers, would you know, take his, his image, and use it for an ad and then be done with it and they're not going to use it again.

Gary Pageau: 19:36

You know what I mean it's a complex.

James I Bond: 19:38

Once you see the image, you get it. And so he decided you know what, let me create a book with my images. So I own the book and he called it. In America we know it as Where's Waldo?

Gary Pageau: 19:50

Okay in america, we know it as where's waldo?

James I Bond: 19:51

okay, in england they called it where's wally okay okay, where's wally whoa whoa. Where's waldo whoa? It uses alliteration, the repetition of sound. Okay, right, and it's like you search through this complicated image of all these drawing, of all these people and inside there is a guy with a red and white striped hat and a red and white striped t-shirt, and that's waldo or, okay, and he ended up making so much money he sold it for 50 million dollars.

Gary Pageau: 20:18

Okay, yeah yeah, and that and that and that became part of the culture, right? I mean, everyone knows where waldo is, and yet he was struggling as an illustrator.

James I Bond: 20:29

People loved this illustration, but once you did it, once, you didn't need it again. But he realized that if I own the photograph the illustration in this case, but it could be a photograph too you know, there's a guy I was looking at, uh seth castrol, and he did uh underwater dogs. You know, he got uh one of the cameras I forget what the camera's called that you can go underwater with sir, yeah, submersersible camera sure.

James I Bond: 20:51

Yeah, yeah, right. And then he would have dogs. He would like take care of dogs. He was like a dog sitter and so he thought what the heck? So he would throw. He would go underneath the water, have somebody throw a ball into the water and you see the dog underwater catching the dogs, catching the balls, I mean, and they're really amazing, especially underwater with the dog.

Gary Pageau: 21:10

Yeah, sure, sure. Everyone loves dogs, right, you can't go wrong with them.

James I Bond: 21:13

Yeah exactly, and he made a fortune off selling his book and, again, greeting cards. There are a lot of things you can use with it. Once you own the copyright, you own the work as you photograph it. Yes, we service other people and I think it was hard. The hardest thing for me was I was servicing other people. The hardest thing for me was, you know, I was servicing other people.

James I Bond: 21:31

I was a photographer. Tell me what you want me to photograph and I'll photograph. Okay, I transitioned over to what do I want to photograph, first as a hobby, but eventually as a business. I recognize that. You know I can uncover things. So I'll go back to your question about what I do is metaphors. I can start creating metaphors for products, you know, and so you take a product that exists and create a metaphor for it in a photograph. Sure, you can have a lot of fun with it and actually sell it and make a lot of money. Okay, you know, and so it just. It's those types of areas where you know, recognize, people think photography is like diamond it's on your camera, it's on your phone you know I mean everybody's taking pictures now it's, but it's what concept are you projecting?

Gary Pageau: 22:18

and if you can project the concept, you can have lots of fun so one of the things that we come across when we do interviews with folks about marketing and sales and all this stuff is sort of having that discipline to kind of stick with your message. So after you come up with your emotional hook, if you will, what's your next step from that? Let's say, for example, I'm a camera store and I've come up with an emotional hook for that and my job is to sell cameras and accessories and other fun things to people. I guess what I'm thinking of is I think people are great at starting, but they aren't always stated continuing Right. What are your thoughts on that?

James I Bond: 23:01

Well, photographers, let's do that. In photography stores advertise. So the first thing you want to do is you want to. You don't want cash? Okay, this is a funny thing. People say you don't want cash, you want cash flow right okay.

James I Bond: 23:15

So what you want to do is you want to create an ad that people are going to go like whoa, you know, whoa, that's interesting, you know, in in brain glow. I talk about the concept of milyn monroe. Uh, that, uh, her name was originally norma jean, norma jean mortensen, and uh, her her manager said you should. You know, norma jean is not a good name for models. You should change it to marilyn and her mother's name, maiden name, was monroe. So she went marilyn monroe. Okay, that's alliteration, by the way, repetition of sound marilyn Monroe like Chevy Chase, like Coca-Cola, paypal, tiktok. You think it's a coincidence that these guys use alliteration? No, they use it because it sticks to the brain. So she's Marilyn Monroe. Then she loved Jean Harlow, who was a famous actress in the early days, and Jean Harlow had platinum blonde hair. So she went to the same hairdresser that Jean Harlow went to and got her hair colored the same color.

Gary Pageau: 24:06

Right.

James I Bond: 24:07

Okay. But then she said you know she has a beauty mark on her left cheek and so she covered up with makeup. But one day she's looking at photographs of Jean Harlow and she goes, wait a second. In some of the photographs Jean Harlow has a beauty mark on her cheek and in some it's on her chin. I bet she doesn't even have a beauty mark on her cheek and in some it's on her chin.

James I Bond: 24:24

I bet she doesn't even have a beauty mark. I bet she's just putting a dot on her face to attract attention to herself, right, wow? So she started, instead of making it hiding the beauty mark on her chin, on her cheek, she actually made it darker and she believed that it became one of the key ways. The reasons that she became successful is because of that dot on her face attracted, attracted attention to her.

James I Bond: 24:45

So there's a famous model, cindy Crawford. Cindy Crawford also has I was. I saw her biography and she has a beauty mark on her, above her lip, on her left side of her lip. And she says as a kid I wanted to get rid of that beauty mark. I begged my mom take me to the doctor to get rid of it. She said I am so glad my mom didn't do that right, because I believe I became a supermodel. She became the first supermodel.

James I Bond: 25:09

I became a supermodel because of that thought on my lip, because I had beauty mark on my lip, sure you know? And so when you think about so, you're doing an ad, I'm doing an ad. I did an ad for that and I said um, I show a picture of a marilyn monroe's and I said you want to be successful, you need one of these. And I put a photograph with an arrow pointing to the beauty mark on her face and it's like what? And people are going like what? And they start reading the text. What is he talking about? If I do, I put a dot on my face, you know, but it grabs attention enough that people. You know, one of the tools we have is oxytocin. It's when you make people laugh. Laughers tend to be buyers not always, but often and so when you you know you can, if you can get people laughing and grab their attention, you can actually sell more products or services, whatever you're working with Humor can be a challenge, right, Because people's sense of humor are not always the same, right?

Gary Pageau: 26:11

If you get kind of mean, people can take that a different way. You mentioned Chevy Chase earlier and his sense of humor is not for everyone, so how do you balance that? Is that part of knowing your customer is knowing what kind of humor works?

James I Bond: 26:23

So I'm going to tell you a secret of success, okay, Okay, the famous line. This famous person said I don't know the secret of success, but the secret to failure is trying to please everyone.

Gary Pageau: 26:33

Right.

James I Bond: 26:34

You will never please everyone. I have the cure for cancer, oh, you know, whatever it is. You know, for whatever reason, if you try to please everyone, you won't succeed. Now you don't want to turn people off and I know we've got lots of wokeism and stuff like that, but still you got to be passionate about what you do. I mean, what's his name? A famous comedian. And he said a joke. He was talking about a friend of his that was gay and he made a joke about his friend and he said oh, you're anti-gay. And he finally said screw you. You know I'm going to say what I'm going to say. I mean, you don't want to offend people, but I'm talking about my friend. You think I was offending him.

Erin Manning: 27:08

You know.

James I Bond: 27:08

I mean just you know people are In fact. Let me give you a great example of this. Okay, what's it called? Again, it gives you wings.

Gary Pageau: 27:15

Oh, Red Bull.

James I Bond: 27:18

Red Bull gives you wings. If you look at Red Bull's right now, it has three eyes and the word wings I, I, I, n, g okay, yeah, you know why, why, this guy. Apparently he jumped off a building after he drank red bill and he said I got injured, red bill's supposed to give me wings and he actually sued them. I don't know if he won, but he freaked them out. So now they put three eyes and red bull gives you wn-g-s not real.

Gary Pageau: 27:43

Wings, it's a yeah, not real like get over it.

James I Bond: 27:49

That's crazy that is, that is crazy if it's just you know, things like here's here's some jokes. There's something that's called chiasmus, which is a flip. Okay, it's like uh, all for one and one for all. Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. See, it's a flip. So here's jokes that work that way. I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

Gary Pageau: 28:10

Right, exactly.

James I Bond: 28:11

I'd rather I'm an old person, so I can relate to this one. I'd rather wake up and pee than pee and wake up.

Gary Pageau: 28:16

There you go.

James I Bond: 28:17

Okay, don't sweat the petty things or pet the sweaty things.

Gary Pageau: 28:21

Oh yeah, so the plays on words can work and I think there's a lot of those in photography that are that are applicable here, that people can play with. I just, I, it's just, it's just interesting how, you know, a lot of the stuff you see is very, you know, I'm saying brand focus, but very product focus in the photography industry. Right, you know, hey, we got, we can make this size print at this price, hooray, but it really kind of lacks the emotional attachment, right, the the reason why you want to do that now. Kodak used to be great at that, right, I mean the times of your life. You know the whole paul anka song. They really just pushed that right and I think that's what people remember most about kodak advertising back in the day was that it wasn't.

Gary Pageau: 29:02

You know, hey, buy a three pack of film and you get, you know, two bucks off or whatever the promo is, and I think that actually spurs usage, is getting to that emotional attachment. You know, I think we're kind of in a place in the industry where it's very, like I said, product focused and price point focused and it's kind of getting away from the emotional thing, because I think people are just worried. Hey, you know, I don't really know who my customer is, so I don't know how to talk to them really, because I'm doing so much online. So I think there's a lot of challenges there reconnecting with that emotional piece.

James I Bond: 29:38

Absolutely. And so let's say you're trying and this is a famous ad I saw let's say you're trying to let's this is a famous ad I saw. Let's say you're trying to let people know that you can't sell something to somebody that doesn't relate to them right, right, okay that's what I want to communicate. So what do I do? It's a photograph it's a really good ad of a beautiful woman with shaving cream on her face and she's shaving okay right and the headline says you can't get people to buy something that doesn't apply to them.

Gary Pageau: 30:08

Right, exactly.

James I Bond: 30:10

That's more powerful than if you just had the headline. And you know, photographs have a tremendous ability to affect people emotionally.

Gary Pageau: 30:18

Right.

James I Bond: 30:18

And so when we're going to, you know, affect people emotionally. I mean, I have this famous photograph of Muhammad Ali and he's, you know, he's got his fist up in the air like this and the guy that he just knocked out is down on the ground.

Gary Pageau: 30:32

The Sonny Liston photo yeah exactly.

James I Bond: 30:34

I mean it sticks to the brain, it's like fantastic.

Gary Pageau: 30:37

It's iconic. Right Now, going back to what your friend said, right, You've got to pay for the rights to use that picture.

James I Bond: 30:44

You can't just steal the picture, which is a whole, nother issue today, but when you're a photographer, then you can take pictures and you can have. You have more control right, yeah, yeah yeah, you know I mean, it's just yeah, and that's that's why you think of the concept first, you know, so like you can get your wife, I can get my wife and I can put shaving cream on her and get her, you know, pull out the blade from the razor so it doesn't shave her, but I can start, and just start shaving her.

James I Bond: 31:08

I first start shaving herself and I can take a photograph of that, and people are going to go Whoa you know how can I? Apply. That? That's really good.

James I Bond: 31:15

You know, think of what do you want to say? So I to me, it works this way you start with logic. Don't turn off logic. Start with the logic. What do I want to say? You know, come to our photo store, ok, why. Come up with a reason why people should come to our photo store, and then you can have a picture of a guy upside down saying I came to the photo store. You should too. You know he's upside down, you can have fun with it. You know you have fun with how you communicate. Start with the logical piece and then then remember, people buy for emotional reasons, not logical. So come up with an emotional concept. When you come up with the emotional concept, it could be a metaphor. You know it's like the. You know the lawnmower.

Gary Pageau: 31:54

Okay, right, you know, it's just when you come up with something like that.

James I Bond: 31:58

You have lots of fun right I mean, in fact, I was in a store and I saw an ad. Okay, in the store I think it was Bed, bath, beyond or something like that. I was with my wife and it said the lawnmower with an arrow, and it pointed to an electric razor on the thing. I'm like what, the lawnmower? And I started reading the text. It got me to read the text of the ad, right, so that's, you know. We want to understand For and for me. I started just with photography, but I started learning that words and photography work together, especially if you have opposites.

Gary Pageau: 32:29

Right. Yeah, I think that because I think that you're right. That's sort of like a disjunction or an incongruence can get attention more than a complimentary photo, right, something that's out of place or kind of makes you grab your attention.

James I Bond: 32:42

So if I'm trying to describe brain glue, I like metaphors, right. So I came up with this metaphor because naked works. Okay, this guy who's in advertising his name is bear b-a-e-r. David bear and I said, oh, I got the perfect name for your company because he teaches advertisers how to make more money. I said you should call it bear naked advertising. And he's like, oh, his partner is going yeah that's a great name and he's like a bare naked advertising, right.

James I Bond: 33:08

But so I have a metaphor for brain glue and it's like you have a naked man running through your backyard. It's like you're gonna go, whoa, what, what's he doing? What you know, you're gonna check it out. Why is he running through my backyard? So I can create a picture saying you know, here's why you should buy brain glue. And has a guy, guy, a naked man, just slightly covered Okay, a little part of the cover running through a backyard. He says you know, see this naked man running through your backyard. That's what you're going to get with brain glue.

Gary Pageau: 33:34

People are going to be like well, I don't know if we want that, though.

James I Bond: 33:37

Okay.

Gary Pageau: 33:38

People going through my, my backyard, naked. I'm not sure, but yeah but I see what your point is, sort of the, the attention getting somewhat humorous sort of thing.

James I Bond: 33:52

Yeah, exactly that's why a metaphor is a good one, or an analogy. Say, it's just like dot dot dot and be crazy, come up with the craziest ideas first, okay, right, and when you do that, it's just like dot dot dot. You know, it's just like a lawnmower, you know right, you know you start, I get it in a second.

Gary Pageau: 34:07

No, that's actually a brilliant piece of thing. So where can people go to learn more about the Brain Glue book? I imagine there's probably a website for that.

James I Bond: 34:17

Yeah, if you go to, yes, BrainG lueBook. com.

Gary Pageau: 34:20

Okay.

James I Bond: 34:21

That'll take you to a page that has all kinds of content on Brain Glue and everything else has links to the book. Hopefully you'll buy the book, but even if you don't, it has lots of information on it. It's got a Jack Canfield who wrote chicken soup for the soul. He's got 500 million books and he's taught he has. We have actually a video of him talking about it. He's forcing everybody in his company to use it. But I mean, but it's got lots of information on it. So if you go to yes brainglue. com, you know, I think people will really enjoy what's on there.

Gary Pageau: 34:48

Okay, great. Well, J ames. It was great to talk with you. I really enjoyed our conversation about reaching people and connecting with them and making that emotional connection Hopefully sell more stuff. Thank you so much for your time and best wishes. Hopefully we'll be in touch soon.

Erin Manning: 35:07

Take care. Thank you for listening to the Dead Pixels Society podcast. Read more great stories and sign up for the newsletter at wwwthedeadpixelssocietycom.