Hey - It's Carson.

I want to apologize. I have been up to my neck in work this week, and this newsletter is more bare this week because of it (sad news, I know).

Been signing new clients, getting inundated with requests, taking meetings for potential new ones, and am trying to manage all my own personal socials, including this newsletter.

Safe to say it is a LOT of work, and that’s a good thing. I am grateful and having a blast. But again, my apologies for the lack of detail this week.

Oh, also, I am potentially getting ready to hire a Creative Strategist. So, if that’s you or someone you know, be on the lookout on my LinkedIn and Twitter for the official announcement.

Fun fact: MY FIRST EVER BILLBOARD IS GOING UP IN TIMES SQUARE NEXT THURSDAY!!!

Pretty insane if you ask me. That is my good news. More to follow, but you all are the first to know now!

Anyway, let’s speed run this week’s ads.

Ads of the Week

General Electric, Jumpspeak, Tide, NDEP, Skool

General Electric

🧠 Principle: Escapism Theory

🖋️ Definition: People seek temporary mental or emotional relief through entertainment or sensory immersion.

💡 Why it works: “Choose Your Escape Route” turns headphones into a portal to freedom.

It reframes your headphones not as a product, but as an experience of transcendence and a way to mentally step out of stress, monotony, or responsibility and into your own world, with your own music.

This is how I feel every time I put on headphones.

Jumpspeak

🧠 Principle: Self-Relevance Effect (Personalization Effect)

🖋️ Definition: Information feels more impactful when it relates personally.

💡 Why it works: This is my favorite ad of the week. The headline hooks you with a vivid, relatable moment (croissant flakes all over your shirt) and is specific enough to make the information concrete because it’s visualizable.

Anyone who’s had a croissant knows this feeling, so the fact that they can relate, have a point of relativity (speed of flakes all over your + speed of learning French), and easily understand it makes it 10/10.

Tide

🧠 Principle: (a) Processing Fluency (Simplicity Effect) + (b) Visual Metaphor

🖋️ Definitions:

(a) The easier something is to understand, the more we trust and like it.

(b) An image that represents an abstract idea or concept, using a concrete object to suggest meaning beyond its literal appearance.

💡 Why it works: Tide uses a minimal, instantly clear visual metaphor: the stain looks like it’s being peeled off like a sticker.

Just that cue communicates the product benefit “removes stains easily” faster and more effectively than any headline could.

Your brain processes it in under a second, experiences an “aha” moment, and rewards itself with dopamine for getting the joke, then you subconsciously register the value of Tide.

National Diabetes Education Program

🧠 Principle: Cognitive Dissonance

🖋️ Definition: The discomfort you feel when your beliefs, values, or attitudes, and behavior contradict your beliefs.

💡 Why it works: The reason you feel “discomfort” is because at an immediate glance, you’d think this is a Snickers logo, then you realize it’s not.

Snicker’s is a brand universally associated with indulgence, humor, and satisfaction. But it’s swapped for a word with opposite emotional weight: “Diabetes.”

The bait-and-switch creates cognitive dissonance (the mental discomfort) from conflicting associations. You expect pleasure (candy), but get a consequence (disease). The friction forces you to pause, reconcile the conflict, and read the copy to understand.

Skool

🧠 Principle: The Isolation Effect (Von Restorff Effect)

🖋️ Definition: Items that differ from their surroundings are more likely to be noticed and remembered.

💡 Why it works: This ad stands out because it does almost nothing. Literally, it is just text, with negative space, and calls out a specific audience.

Feeds are typically full of bright visuals, animations, and just mental stimulation overload, but Skool leverages the Isolation Effect with the plain black background and single, ultra-specific line of text to get a specific audience’s attention.

It really can be this simple, ladies and gents.

Clear > Clever

Here's an ad I made for Pinterest

That’s all for this week. It’s 00:00 on Tuesday night, and I still have much to do.

So, stay tuned for more by following me on socials below. I’ll be sharing (potentially vlogging) my first Billboard in Times Square next week.

Thank you for reading, as always. Till next week.

Stay Mad,

-Carson 🧪

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