someone going to tell my cousin, “No, I think you’re lying, there’s no way Lands’ End would be that
nice”? Hardly.
Second, we’re so caught up in the drama of what happened to so-and-so that we don’t have the
cognitive resources to disagree. We’re so engaged in following the narrative that we don’t have the
energy to question what is being said. So in the end, we’re much more likely to be persuaded.
—————
People don’t like to seem like walking advertisements. The Subway sandwich chain offers seven
subs with less than six grams of fat. But no one is going to walk up to a friend and just spit out that
information. Not only would it be weird, it would be out of context. Sure, this information is
practically valuable if someone is trying to lose weight, but unless weight loss is the topic of
conversation, or the situation triggers people to think about ways to lose weight, they’re not going to
bring it up. So the fact that Subway has a bunch of low-fat options may not be brought up that often.
Contrast that with the Jared story. Jared Fogle lost 245 pounds eating Subway sandwiches. Bad
eating habits and lack of exercise led Jared to balloon to 425 pounds in college. He was so heavy that
he picked his courses based on whether the classroom had large-enough seats for him to be
comfortable rather than whether he liked the material.
But after his roommate pointed out that his health was getting worse, Jared decided to take action.
So he started a “Subway diet”: almost every day he ate a foot-long veggie sub for lunch and a six-inch
turkey sub for dinner. After three months of this self-imposed regimen he had lost almost 100 pounds.
But he didn’t stop there. Jared kept up his diet. Soon his pants size had dropped from an enormous
sixty inches to a normal thirty-four-inch waist. He lost all that weight and had Subway to thank.
The Jared story is so entertaining that people bring it up even when they’re not talking about weight
loss. The amount of weight he lost is impressive, but even more astonishing is the fact that he lost it
eating Subway sandwiches. A guy loses 245 pounds eating fast food? The summary alone is enough to
draw people in.
The story gets shared for many of the reasons we talked about in prior chapters. It’s remarkable
(Social Currency), evokes surprise and amazement (Emotion), and provides useful information about
healthy fast food (Practical Value).
People don’t talk about Jared because they want to help Subway, but Subway still benefits because
it is part of the narrative. Listeners learn about Jared, but they also learn about Subway along the way.
They learn that (1) while Subway might seem like fast food, it actually offers a number of healthy
options. (2) So healthy that someone could lose weight by eating them. (3) A lot of weight. Further,
(4) someone could eat mostly Subway sandwiches for three months and still come back for more. So
the food must be pretty tasty. Listeners learn all this about Subway, even though people tell the story
because of Jared.
And that is the magic of stories.
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