The Hidden Edge

Do you know what it is like to have a number of elements coming together at the same time that focus in on one particular area of interest for you?  This has happened to me recently in the exploration of descriptive prose.   

1. It has come up as an exercise in writing creatively http://thewriterswayjournal.blogspot.com/.  In particular how you can make words sound like they should be part of the story.
2. I have been advised to be more descriptive in my own writing.
3. I have been working with Richard Mack on his Sensory Seduction presentation.

The sensory seduction presentation was given to an audience that mostly comprised of B2B service business people.   Most marketing activities appeal to only two senses; sight and hearing, and for service orientated business usually only sight.  Yet we recognise people, products, and places using all five of our senses; including touch, smell, and taste.  Whether you’re selling marketing, PR, financial or HR services, your customers react in the same way as they do to products, using their five senses.  The more you are able to connect with them multi- sensually the deeper they will feel about your service. It is easy to identify how you can connect with the senses if you are selling a product but it is less easy when it is a service, still less when it is a business to business service.     

The Sixth Sense  What ever marketing material we are using we are aiming to make an emotional connection; one that stimulates resolute loyalty, and word of mouth recommendations.  Not all media channels are able to connect with the five senses, which is why it needs some thinking about.  However, it is possible to use the sixth sense, that one of gut feeling, kinaesthetic and memory to engage and stimulate the other senses.   This means linking into associations and using memories to stimulate a positive outcome.  This may involve using words to a much greater effect, to stimulate the memory of taste and touch and even sound.   

Smell – The pungent pong of cow pat – slightly hardened at the edges but still gloopy at the centre, humming with orange tinted flies.  Pah!  How empathetic is the P with the smell of pooh? 

Touch – The gentle draft of feather across the nape of the neck sends tremors of sexual intensity and sensitivity; from the tip of the tongue to the deep depths of decadence. 

Sound –  suddenly the sound was were more severe, sirens were now seriously piercing the howls and screams of the wind that was whipping through the chimney pots and causing monumental chaos in its wake. 

Taste - Whilst this is an example of yet another product do have a look at last year’s M&S Christmas food advert.  Listen to the words that have been used to stimulate the senses other than sight and sound.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHFKE6PD_6U 

 Pretty powerful eh?

but it doesn’t tell the whole story. 

http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?id=682676873 

I like this photo!  I think it is funny.  And for those of you who don’t know me, (I keep a low profile on this Blog) I am she with the rather large tongue! 

Whilst there is a lot going on, what is it all about? Why have I got my tongue out?  Who is the little boy and why is he pulling away from me?  Who is the women on the left – is she is colluding?  Why is she wearing velveteen trousers – or is she?  Why am I wearing a rain hat when the weather looks perfectly all right?  What time of year is it?  Why are all those people in the background all walking away from this scene?  Why are some of the flags flying in the wrong direction?  Where is this harbour?  Are we wide awake and excited or tiring out and fractious?  What is the man on the right just about to do?  What have I got in my hand and why might that be?  What are we thinking about?  How are we feeling?  Who has taken the photograph?  How did we get there?  Are we hungry or sated? 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9uj98Tgm8Y 

Pictures will support your words, but by themselves they don’t say any much about the story true or otherwise.   

What would you say is going on?