The Plumber for Female Republicans with Kids in the North Dallas Area

I want you to think about why you clicked this link. It's going to prove a point.

I read. A lot. Before it was my job to sift through and write news daily, I would read constantly. Novels as kid and throughout my education, but as I grew, my reading material shrank. Tomes 400-pages thick were replaced by short story compilations, which gave way to magazine articles, and they in turn were replaced by rapidly shrinking news briefs. It's almost as if, as I became older, my attention span shrank. That's not how it's supposed to work, is it? Isn't that interesting?

That paradox, that dichotomy between what is expected and what is, is interesting. It creates interest because it is not superficial. It is something to think about because you have to think about it, because it cannot be understood at a glance. If I said my attention span increased with age, you wouldn't think about it because it's expected. But when presented with something you do not expect, it sticks with you. You want to understand it. You need the conflict resolved. You click the link titled "The Plumber for Female Republicans with Kids in the North Dallas Area" because you have to know what it means.

That phrase was taken from an article in Forbes, The Paradoxical Secret of Obsession-Worthy Branding. Author Michael Ellsberg, despite looking like an evil Patrick Dempsey, has written a thought-provoking article on the subject of marketing and branding that is very worth your time. The crux of his argument is that all truly good branding is the result of creating a paradox that causes the audience to stop, think, ponder and, ultimately, remember. The idea is that taking a name or phrase that is known, then making it unknown, can make it stick.