People have a compulsive urge to tick boxes.

Now, what do I mean by that?

Well, they’re reading something and a headline attracts their attention… “Are you cruel to your kids?” And if they have kids, they’re going to want to read the rest of that article or advertisement, and the form of it could be simple. “Do you do these things?” and then there are some questions with yes or no boxes for their answer which they check. When they get to the end of the questions and box checking, there’s a little summary which tells them if they’ve checked more than two boxes, they should do so and so.

That’s the way these things work.

They’ve been working like that since advertising began. In fact, one of the 100 most famous advertisements in history began “Do you make these mistakes in English?” and there were four or five questions asked about common mistakes people made in their grammar. And, of course, if they’d checked more than one box, what they had to do was buy the advertiser’s product, which would help them with their grammar and turn them into a better user of the language.

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So, checklists still have their uses today because of that compulsive urge for people to want to check the boxes… and see how they score and what they should do about it!

As the advertiser you tell them! And then prove why they should.