I play guitar and sing in a local brew pub called The Poison Frog. At a recent gig I played an old camp song. Afterward, Phil Wilcox, the owner and master brewer, asked if I would do an entire “campfire” theme one night.

Following the advice of Teddy Roosevelt who said, “Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell ’em, ‘Certainly I can!’ Then get busy and find out how to do it,” I said yes and scheduled it for Friday, June 23rd. Hope you can come.

Then I got busy looking up campfire songs.

I found great song suggestions online, many of which I already knew.

I also found a bunch of songs I didn’t recognize the title or the artist. Surprisingly, when I listened to these songs, I realized I actually did know them and could already sing along to parts of them—even though I had never tried to learn them before nor even knew the song title or artist’s name!

You’ve had that experience, too. A song comes on the radio or Spotify and you start singing along. You don’t know the artist or title. You just start singing.

How can we know the words to songs we never tried to memorize? How can we sing along to songs we didn’t care enough to download into a playlist? How can our brains recall such information we never tried to store?

Our ears are never closed. We are hearing and our brain is processing sounds whether we are actively, consciously trying to listen or not. That’s why you can repeat back what the teacher said when she caught you daydreaming. That’s why you can sing along to hundreds of songs you never tried to learn. That’s why the alarm clock wakes you up every morning. That’s why strange sounds wake you up in the middle of the night.

I share this little tidbit with you because it comes into play for three distinct and different reasons in your advertising. You’ll learn why in the SPOTLIGHT ON MARKETING AND ADVERTISING class coming up Tuesday, June 20th. You should sign up today.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS You’re probably trying to guess those three reasons. You probably first figure I’m going to talk about jingles. Well, yes. And no. Humor, sex, and music are delicate techniques that need to be used with care and skill or they will backfire in a big way. Sign up for the class and I’ll show you what the pros know.

PPS The other two reasons are fascinating. One deals with how memory works. The other deals with how different media work. Take the class and you’ll learn secrets your advertising salespeople likely don’t know. (And if you are an advertising salesperson, you’re welcome to sign up, too!)