The importance of the model interruption approach

Taking a five or six figure advertising business and growing it to nine or ten figures, or even beyond, is not easy. If you’ve been in this situation before and struggled to move forward, you might have wondered what exactly is to blame.

“In the advertising space, it is common knowledge that the capacity for development of a given advertising company is linked only to its products. This belief ignores something important, namely the role played by creations that interrupt models and the importance of updating them regularly. These elements can lose their potency quickly when scaling up, but they are also among the main drivers of return on investment, ”says Arham Muhammad, Founder of C Media.

Want to make sure your creatives are doing their jobs efficiently? Maybe it’s time to learn about neurolinguistic programming, or NLP.

NLP explained

According to Muhammad, “Simply put, neurolinguistic programming is a psychological approach to understanding how the human brain is affected by language. This approach dates back to the 1970s, when it was devised by John Grinder and Richard Bandler.

How NLP works

As Bandler himself once described, “Neurolinguistic programming is the study of successful behaviors – and I’m not just talking about external behavior. I mean the internal behaviors, the thought patterns that produce that success.

To break it down further, Grinder and Bandler believe that our experiences, neurological processes, and our use of language are all intrinsically linked. The combination of these factors allows our mind to function as it does and affects our behaviors and actions. Moreover, people can create their own negative or positive NLP and can even replace negative NLP with positive NLP to make it easier for them to achieve various goals.

While some doubts remain about the scientific validity of neurolinguistic programming, many of its fundamental principles can help you take your advertising business to the next level.

NLP and advertising

Muhammad continues, “It is important to note that NLP is not a silver bullet, that is, it will not automatically solve all of your problems. Still, it’s at least worth considering. In some cases, the study of NLP has helped advertisers dramatically increase their clients’ advertising ROI.

One technique related to NLP that has been implemented with success by advertising agencies is known as the pattern interruption approach.

What is the model interruption approach?

As mentioned earlier, everyone has neurolinguistic habits that they have acquired throughout their life. The model interrupt approach (or, as it is commonly known in advertising, the scroll stop approach) can break those habits and get users to pay attention to your customers’ ads.

For example, let’s say you are trying to get rid of a cigarette addiction. The pattern disruption approach can help you “reprogram” your mind, making it easier to avoid smoking by creating new habits. Needless to say, it’s also an extraordinarily powerful tool for advertising companies.

Examples of model interrupts

A Business entrepreneurship article on pattern interrupts presented an example of how the technique can be used in cold calls. In this scenario, instead of going straight into a sales pitch, a hypothetical caller asks their potential customer if their name is familiar to them. This forces the person on the other end of the phone to stop and think, breaking their established pattern for dealing with salespeople.

While Business entrepreneurshipS article focuses on telemarketing, the principles behind NLP and the model disruption approach can be equally effective in any form of advertising. The key is to anticipate and break user advertising patterns.

In another post, Wildfire Concepts owner Cindy Donovan provided advice on using model breaks in video ads. Among other tips, she encouraged advertisers to emphasize important words and phrases with on-screen text, display silent photos and videos on-screen in advertisements, use headlines for videos (and new video sections) and share survey questions and answers during commercials. .

How to use pattern breaks

Muhammad added, “Let’s look at Netflix as another example. If you’re a Netflix subscriber, you probably know what your own homescreen looks like. But have you ever noticed that other people’s home screens are different and some shows and movies even have different thumbnails? “

There is a reason for this, and it has to do with the model interrupt approach. Netflix has invested millions to understand why some of its thumbnails grabbed viewers’ attention while others didn’t have a similar impact, and why some viewers left their homescreen after watching it for a little over a minute. A study by researchers at the company found that users tended to lose interest after 60 to 90 seconds (or 10 to 20 title searches) if they couldn’t find something of interest to watch.

Of course, the images used to portray these shows and movies play a huge role, especially since they’re one of the few tools Netflix can use to promote them on its home screen. And because different people have different preferences, it makes sense that thumbnails that would appeal to some viewers would do nothing for others.

Muhammad adds, “It becomes even more important once the ongoing changes in human attention span are taken into account. In 2016, Facebook revealed that its users spent around 2.5 seconds with each piece of content in their News Feed on desktop and only 1.7 seconds on mobile.

Two years later, Prezi’s 2018 State of Attention Report found that an average person’s attention span isn’t actually decreasing, but is changing. In the face of a constant onslaught of information, we get better at picking out what to pay attention to. Prezi’s report also said people are more willing to engage with content with a strong narrative component, engaging visuals and dialogue.

By using designs developed with NLP and the pattern disruption approach in mind, you can gain the upper hand over your competition and help your ROI soar.