FASCINATE

Your 7 Triggers to
Persuasion and Captivation

SALLY HOGSHEAD
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Figure 4

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Figure 5
Coke

lust mystique alarm prestige power vice trust

Figure 6

Sephora

lust mystique alarm prestige power vice trust

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Figure 7

Figure 8
Superman

lust mystique alarm prestige power vice trust

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Figure 9

Fascination at a Glance

Overall Principles:
• You are already fascinating, using your natural strengths.
• Anyone, and anything, can become more fascinating.
• There are seven fascination triggers, each with a different
purpose.
• Fascination is instinctive, innate, and often involuntary.
• Fascination affects every part of our lives.
• Fascination is the shortcut to persuasion.
• Now more than ever, fascination is a new competitive
advantage.

Trends Driving the Need for Fascination:

• An overload of distracting choices
• The rise of the ADD world
• Earning attention, not paying attention
• The ability to shut out messages
• Shift from the information age to the fascination age
• The Fascination Economy

Gold Hallmarks of a Fascinating Message:

• Provokes strong and immediate emotional reactions
• Creates advocates
• Becomes “cultural shorthand” for a specific set of actions
or values
• Incites conversation
• Forces competitors to realign around it
• Triggers social revolutions

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The Seven Triggers
These seven universal triggers spark a variety of responses, any
one of which heightens our physical, emotional, and intellectual
focus. Effectively activated, each trigger creates a different type
of response.

Lust
If you trigger lust, you will draw others closer. They will crave
your message, wanting more and more until satiated.

Pillars of Lust:
• Stop thinking, start feeling
• Make the ordinary more emotional
• Use all five senses
• Tease and flirt

Mystique
Trigger mystique, and you’ll encourage others to learn
more about your message. They’ll be intrigued, and seek
information.

Pillars of Mystique:
• Spark curiosity
• Withhold information
• Build mythology
• Limit access

Alarm
With alarm, you compel others to behave more urgently.
They’ll take action in order to avoid negative consequences.

Pillars of Alarm:
• Define consequences
• Create deadlines
• Increase perceived danger
• Focus not on the crisis most likely, but on the one most feared
• Use distress to steer positive action

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Prestige
A message with prestige will elevate you above others, inspiring
covetousness or envy.

Pillars of Prestige:
• Develop emblems
• Set a new standard
• Limit availability
• Earn it

Power
If you effectively trigger power, you will control others. They
will defer to you and your message.

Pillars of Power:
• Dominate
• Control the environment
• Reward and punish

Vice
By triggering vice, your message will tempt others to deviate
from their usual code of conduct. They’ll act outside of stan-
dard habits or norms.

Pillars of Vice:
• Create taboos
• Lead others astray
• Define absolutes
• Give a wink

Trust
With trust, your message will comfort others, relax them, and
bind them more closely to you.

Pillars of Trust:
• Become familiar
• Repeat and retell
• Be authentic
• Accelerate trust

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Your Potential Fascination Badges
Seven potential areas for what you represent:

Purpose: Your reason for being; your function as a brand.

Core beliefs: The code of values and principles that guides you;
what you stand for.

Heritage: Your reputation and history; the “backstory” of how

you came to be.

Products: The goods, ser­v ices, or information you produce.

Benefits: The promises of reward for purchasing the product,

both tangible and abstract, overt and implied.

Actions: How you conduct yourself.

Culture: All characteristics of your identity, including person-

ality, executional style, and mind-set.

Steps to Find the Edge of Your Bell Curve:

• List your badges (both existing and potential).
• Evaluate against the hallmarks of a fascinating brand.
• Plot on a bell curve.
• Push badges outward on the curve by infusing them with
more of your primary trigger.
• Push badges outward on the curve by infusing them with
a new trigger.
• Build your message around these badges.

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Who Invented the Seven Triggers?
These seven triggers aren’t anything new. I didn’t invent them.
In fact, you’re already using them. You’ve been using them
your whole life.
That very first time you gave your mother a big, toothless
smile? You were fascinating then, and you’re fascinating now.
Every time you make eye contact, you’re fascinating. When
you teach your kindergartener how to use scissors, or train the
dog to stay off the couch, you’re fascinating. When you keep
a secret, or stand your ground, or fulfill a promise, or hold
someone close, you’re fascinating because you’re using your
natural strengths to connect with others.
How will you apply the seven triggers to your own mes-
sage so that the ­people around you don’t just hear what you’re
saying, but act upon it? How could you apply this not only to
your product and work relationships but to the ­people and pur-
suits closest to you? That’s the bigger purpose.