Eyes: Heavy, like two tiny venetian blinds made of pure lead.

Body: Sleepy, like a forgotten submarine at the bottom of a cold trench somewhere between here and Australia.

I glance at the clock, blinking a bright-red “11:59 pm.”

Below the traditional 12-hour reading, in a smaller display, is the military time equivalent.

According to that number, it’s currently 23:59.

Then the numbers shift.

Click.

Though it doesn’t shift to “24:00,” of course.

It goes right back to 00:00, where it first started a whole 24 hours before.

But …

What if a day could be more than just 24 hours?

That was exactly the premise in the copy of a recent ad served to me on Instagram.

Here’s the first sentence of that copy, verbatim:

“Boost your productivity, making your day more than 24 hours.”

It’s a bold claim.

Nonsensical, even.

And it’s also brilliant (though the execution here is a little cack-handed in my opinion.)

As you continue to read the ad, you realize that it’s not promoting some strange new time-portal-productivity program.

Instead, it’s promoting a clock.

And a timer.

And a stopwatch.

And a lot more … all in a single little cubic device.

Now, the connection between the headline and the actual product itself took me a minute to figure out.

Just long enough, in fact, to get me to click to see what the writer of this ad meant by “making your day longer than 24 hours.”

When I landed on the destination page, I quickly realized the underlying strategy the copywriter used … and how brilliant it is.

Do you know the technique I’m describing?

If so, sign up for my email list, then reply to my welcome message and tell me what you think it is.

But if you don’t know the technique — and you want to — reply anyway, and I’ll tell you the solution.

I’ll also send you a screenshot of the ad and the landing page it’s running to.

David Patrick