Morning!

My weekend has been hectic. Mamma Mia The Musical on Friday, Cage Warriors on Saturday. Now it’s Sunday. Take a quick breath. Get this newsletter sent. Then back to Monday.

It feels like my weekends always fly by, but one of my favourite parts of them is writing this newsletter. Hopefully, you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.

This week is a corker of a lesson, and I have a feeling it might completely change how you think about headlines.

Let’s get into it!

On Saturday morning, I was on a jam-packed train to Mossley, a small village just outside Manchester. Shoulder to shoulder with strangers. Lively groups of lads drinking on the way to the football. The kids next to me standing on my shoes. Safe to say it wasn't the relaxing start to my weekend I had in mind.

So for a bit of restbite, I squeezed my hand into my pocket to pull out my phone and have a good old scroll on Twitter.

But while I’d opened the app for some content that would take my mind away from this stuffy train, every other post I saw was some “Business guru” claiming they had a "secret A.I. method" to make a trillion dollars.

Like this one here…

I was already agitated, and my feed being flooded with these audacious claims didn’t help. But it did get me wondering, these people make these big claims in a way to get more attention. They think that claiming to have an A.I. system that makes $5M/month will get more views than a video or post that claims to only make £15/month.

But does it actually work like that? Does making a bigger claim actually convert better?

Well, it turns out there’s some interesting data on this.

In 1990, marketing professor Marvin Goldberg ran a consumer study to test exactly this. How does the size of an advertising claim affect how persuasive it is? Focus groups were shown ads where brands ranked themselves as the #1, #3, #5, or #20 product in their category.

Then, researchers measured which claim made consumers most likely to buy.

Based on what you see on Twitter, you would think that consumers would massively lean towards buying the product that claimed to be #1 in its category, but the results of the study showed the complete opposite.

Legendary copywriter & advertiser - Eugene Schwartz - used to call this the ‘Believability Gap’.

His rule was simple:

Which is exactly what these Twitter gurus fail to understand. Their claims seem fantastic to them and something that everyone should want to learn about. Yet their claims are so far outside what any reasonable person believes that it doesn't pull people in, it repels them.

The best marketers have always understood this.

Bill Bernbach’s Avis campaign is a prime example of this in action. When Bill took on the account in the early 1960s, Hertz was the undisputed king of the rental car market and Avis was haemorrhaging money. In that situation, most marketers would've reached for the biggest claim possible. Bernbach did the opposite.

Instead, he released a series of ads with the headline: "We're No. 2. We Try Harder."

A small, specific, entirely believable admission. The year before the campaign, Avis made a $3.2 million loss. Two years after it, they were turning a $1.2 million profit and had jumped from 11% to 35% market share.

But there’s more than one way to write great ads and show people how great your product or company is. In fact, there’s 1000s. So which should you focus on when you’re building your next marketing campaign or writing your next headline?

Well, there are 3 methods that I see again and again when I’m studying the best ads of all-time:

Humour always has and always will be the easiest way to disarm the consumer. Nobody's guard goes up at a joke. You're too busy smiling to question whether the claim is true. Not to mention, funny people usually aren’t the ones making audacious claims…

Volkswagen nailed this with the baby peering out the back window.

They don't need to make some big claim that it's "The car that never rattles" or that they found a way to make "The most durable car ever". They use a joke that makes that claim for them.

Spend less time thinking of clever ways to tell them you’re great. Instead, spend your time giving them the evidence to come to the conclusion that you’re great.

The moment a reader can see the evidence themselves, they reach the conclusion on their own.

Parker Pens got this. Rather than writing "our pencils have more lead than any other," they just photographed one bent into an S-shape.

They don't need to tell you it's packed with lead. You can see it with your own eyes.

To this day, my favourite marketing tip of all time and one I think I talk about in every single essay.

Adjectives are copywriting sins. "Luxurious." "Powerful." "Best in class." They’re all easy to dismiss. A specific number isn't.

If you’re going to make an audacious claim, make sure it’s a fact, and make sure it’s extremely specific. Like this BMW ad…

BMW didn't tell you the best investment you can make when it comes to a car is buying a BMW. Instead, they showed you a specific fact that showed the car holds its value.

So make your claims specific, make them believable, and please stop with the “I made a gazillion dollars with A.I.” nonsense.

Which brings me back to the train to Mossley, and the "$50k a month while you sleep" crowd.

The irony is that if any of those accounts actually do make decent money (and some of them probably do), they'd convert far better by just saying so honestly. "I made £4,000 last month from one AI tool. It took a lot of work, but I made it happen. Here's how I did it:" That's a claim someone can believe.

The believability gap isn't just about avoiding lies. It's about understanding that the distance between your claim and your reader's existing beliefs is the single biggest obstacle in your marketing. Shrink that gap, and everything gets easier.

Right, that’s all I’ve got for you today. Hope you enjoyed this one!

Until next Sunday,

— Niall

P.S. Love it or hate it? Rate this week’s essay down below :)

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