Pain v Pleasure: Which One Makes For Stronger Copy?

Let me tell you a story about a time I got really sick.

I was 17, over at a girlfriend’s house.

Her dad was Japanese, so they always had some sort of Japanese food on the counter.

One time it was rice in a rice cooker.

Young Davey over here had just fallen in love with the combination of white rice + kewpie mayo + furikake.

(If you haven’t had it, try it … so good.)

So of course, I saw the rice there in the rice cooker and got a heaping bowl of it.

Looking back … it did smell a little funky. But it was still warm so I assumed it was okay to eat.

I was wrong. So very, very wrong.

A couple hours after eating the rice, I was back at my parents house, doubled over on the floor, vomiting my brains out.

This lasted for … about 8 hours.

And all I could think about was how I wanted the pain to end.

I will always and forever remember this terrible experience.

Thing is, I’ve had plenty of delicious rice meals in the decade plus following this experience.

But I can barely remember a single one of the “good” meals.

Point is this: people remember — and find solutions to — pain, more than pleasure. It’s just how we’re hardwired.

Call it evolution or self preservation or whatever. This sort of behavior has been observed for centuries.

Chances are you too remember distinctly a time when you were very, very sick with food poisoning.

But can you recall all the other good meals you’ve had with that same dish since then?

Exactly.

If you’re debating whether or not people run towards pleasure or away from pain, they do both.

But in my experience, running from pain is much more impactful.

Another example:

Which of the following do you think requires a more immediate solution?

Preventing an injury that could cause bleeding before it happens …

Or stanching the bleeding once the injury inevitably DOES happen?

I think you get where I’m going with this.

Pain (and stopping it) requires a much stronger response than preventing it in the first place … and requires more immediate solutions than something that is pleasurable.

It doesn’t mean people don’t buy preventatives.

Nor do they NOT chase pleasure.

But problems … problems get a special category all their own.

And if you can find an angle where your product solves a problem (where it makes sense), you might be able to sell a whole lot more of it.

Read more copywriting parables:

www.stealthiscopy.com/blog

David Patrick