Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation

by Sally Hogshead

A newly revised and updated edition of the influential guide that explores one of the most powerful ways to attract attention and influence behavior—fascination—and how businesses, products, and ideas can become irresistible to consumers. In an oversaturated culture defined by limited time and focus, how do we draw attention to our messages, our ideas, and our products when we only have seconds to compete? Award-winning consultant and speaker Sally Hogshead turned to a wide realm of disciplines, including neurobiology, psychology, and evolutionary anthropology. She began to see specific and interesting patterns that all centered on one fascination. Fascination is the most powerful way to capture an audience and influence behavior. This essential book examines the principles behind fascination and explores how those insights can be put to use to • Which brand of frozen peas you pick in the case • Which city, neighborhood, and house you choose • Which profession and company you join • Where you go on vacation • Which book you buy off the shelf Structured around the seven languages of fascination Hogshead has studied and developed—power, passion, innovation, alarm, mystique, prestige, and alert— Fascinate explores how anyone can use these triggers to make products, messages, and services more fascinating—and more successful.

Genres: Psychology, Business, Nonfiction, Self Help, Communication, Personal Development, Audiobook

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Zach Olsen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read the first 100 pages and the last 50. The middle part that goes into depth about the 7 triggers was full of definitions, semantics and a lot of fluff so I didn't read it all. I think its worth thinking about how before you can ever make the sale you have to get someone interested enough to get them through the door. A better book on the same topic of how to do that is Purple Cow by Seth Godin which covers how to be fascinating by being remarkable. Much more concise and easier to take the idea and put it into action.

[Zana · Rating 1 out of 5]

Here's the thing: if your book is named Fascinate, it has to be, well, fascinating. And this frankly just wasn't. The research methodology was anecdotal and dodgy -- you can't get statistically significant results from such a small sample size, and the questionnaire that I took was inspecific and yielded bizarre results. And the unquestioning accolades of advertising as if it had never had ill effects in its entire history... well. I ask for a higher standard of intellectual rigor (read: ANY AT ALL) in my nonfiction.

I had hoped for a book about marketing and personal branding, since this is relevant to both my job and a few of the side projects I'm developing. What I got was the first book that I ever suspected of selling product placements.

[Taka · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great premise, poor execution--

The seven triggers of fascination - lust, mystique, vice, alarm, power, prestige, trust - are easy to remember but are not really useful because they are blanket terms that encompass whole hosts of things that aren't commonly associated with those words per se.

The book is interesting, but unfortunately doesn't really deliver. The author likes to go on tangent examples and anecdotes that may be interesting to some, but essentially useless and distracting. She circumvents the whole psychological work necessary to backup her claims and instead cites concrete best practice examples when the triggers supposedly worked, but her claims aren't really substantiated as much as I would've liked.

The examples are haphazard and seem to be everywhere, leaving vague impressions of the concepts that are being illustrated.

If you're interested in persuasion and captivation, read Heath brothers' STICK. This book is all pop and no real meat or bone.

[E · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cagey advice on captivating consumers

Becoming fascinating is the best way for your product to stand out from the crowd. You can create a brand identity so interesting and distinctive that consumers will be irresistibly attracted to it, as they are to Apple, Tiffany, Coca-Cola and Google. Brand consultant Sally Hogshead shines a marketing spotlight on the potential power of fascination, details its seven triggers and explains how to use them to increase your product’s attractiveness. A clear, strong writer, Hogshead provides a compelling report on how fascination shoots a desire like an arrow directly to the primitive limbic brain, bypassing rational processing and evaluating. getAbstract believes marketing professionals will learn a lot from Hogshead’s insightful report. Their challenge will be applying her branding magic to make their companies and products truly fascinating to consumers. Of course, Apple’s Steve Jobs and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos do it, but they are authentic marketing geniuses. Indeed, that is what makes them so fascinating.

[Payam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book unnecessarily categorizes everything under "fascination". If you like something, "you are fascinated". If you love something, "you are fascinated". If you are focusing on something, "you are fascinated". If something is disgusting to you, "you are fascinated". As such, the word "fascination" becomes practically meaningless by the end of the book.

Overall, it is a decent book. Unfortunately, its 7 trigger categorization is not scientifically based on anything. She seems to have just created 7. Someone else might have created 8, another 6, another 2.

You should only enjoy it as a casual read, and simply enjoy the case studies she mentions. The rest is mostly to sell the book itself. The author is a marketer after all ;)

[Sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook version (with Sally Hogshead herself reading), and it was solid -- although I have to admit that I'm probably biased considering I work in marketing. Sally does a good job reading her book and offers lots of tidbits, asides, and additional information. She clearly knows her stuff. Sometimes the idea of "fascination" is a bit too broad, but I really did enjoy taking the f-score test (primary trigger: alarm; secondary: trust; dormant trigger: mystique). Certainly I understand my own "brand" better, but I'll probably have to re-listen to the book if I'm to apply Sally's recommendations in real life.

[Lyn Lim · Rating 1 out of 5]

Opened this book expecting to be enamored by the secrets to transform my brands to Pied pipers and their armies of crazed zombies. At 10%, I yawned. At 20%, i paused and used my phone to check my Twitter feed. At 30%, my eyes burnt. At 40% my body went into a state of convulsion and bullshit mortis. What a fascinatingly boring book! It's like one of those motivational speakers asking you to transform your lives by taking 7 simple steps every day! Brush your teeth, comb your hair, smile, dress revealingly, conceal your farts, eat kale and scream at the edge of a cliff! Like hello, what nonsense is this? Unless this is the last book on earth and you've got 3 hours of your precious life to kill, then yeah, go for it

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sally Hogshead's book "Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation" is a legendary adperson's take on how to get people interested in you, your products, or your services. She writes it in a witty, breezy way that keeps the insights coming and the plot moving. Highly enjoyable look at what has grabbed people through the ages.

[Meg]

This is about brands and marketing! It gives great insight into the how's and why's of our fascinations with various things, why it seems so many random products have near-naked women draped all over them, and why some companies don't want to appear accessible to the hoi polloi. It will not tell you how to go about convincing people one-on-one that your idea should be supported, at least not directly. A leeetle dated now, but still applicable.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is not an intellectual exploration, but a marketing workshop that is somewhat gimmicky. One of the problems is that for all the discussion about fascination, it doesn’t define in any depth what fascination really is. In her attempt to fascinate the reader, the author gets creative to the point of losing some credibility. For example, she says that symmetrical elbow bones improve a male’s sexual success, a somewhat factious claim. True, one researcher has found that symmetrical nonfacial features correlate with mating success. But this is a little different from saying that symmetrical elbow bones (for that matter, there is no “elbow bone”) will magically get you laid. But it is true that having a well-proportioned body will make you more attractive to the opposite sex. But that’s not to say the book lacks useful information. In a sense, the untold message is “Become who you are.” To help you find out who you are, the author offers an online personality test. The results tell you what the core drivers (she calls them “triggers”) are in your personality. To be more fascinating, you can supposedly exploit your triggers. The valuable message here is that one should not run away from their core personality traits, and not play a role you're assigned or become that which you’re told to be (by your boss, parents, wife, or by social norms). Instead, embrace yourself and learn how to exploit the positive traits of your true self. This also means you’ll have to accept that you won’t please everyone. Unfortunately, though, this message gets diluted in a presentation that sometimes sounds more like astrology that personal understanding.

Some interesting and important observations: Fascination short-circuits our evaluation process—when we’re fascinated, we tend to behave irrationally, believe things we don’t agree with, buy things we don’t really want, and make choices and take certain actions without necessarily understanding why (being “in love” is one example). She referenced a survey saying that only 40% of Americans found their lives fascinating in the past year (shouldn’t living a fascinating life be a high priority?) We go to a lot of trouble and buy a lot of products to try to make us more fascinating, but most people don’t feel they are fascinating. When achieved, fascination makes us feel more alive.

At the end of the book, fascination is described as an intense captivation that is more than just interesting, distracts you from the things around you, and makes you want to pay complete attention. And it also says that fascination is more than this, but doesn't follow up on that. Which is why this powerful concept needs further unpacking and is where the book fell short.

[Adam Housley · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book came recommended in a blog or article I read, and I had high hopes for it as I transitioned into a new position at work that found me considering how best to develop our brand. A colleague and I had planned to work our way through the book a chapter or two at a time. After our first meeting in September, we agreed the book was overhyped. I finally finished it this week only to get it off my dresser and onto a new life at Half Price Books.

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not without value, but not well-constructed as a book. It felt a bit like reading a student's paper: trivia that doesn't build to a point, sometimes repetitious, unclear purpose of certain things being included, shallow amount of hard analysis. Beginning felt sort of Freakanomics-esque; ending third had some actionable pointers.

[Danijela Jerković · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinate: Unlocking the Secret Triggers of Influence, Persuasion, and Captivation

People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
~Maya Angelou

Triggers behind triggers:

1: Lust
2: Mystique
3: Alarm
4: Power
5: Vice
6: Trust
7: Prestige

... are a range of different emotions as well as five senses and numerous different sets of values not forgetting traits of human behavior.


˝If your message must compel people to want something—really, really want it, despite rational evidence to the contrary—employ the factors of sight, sound, taste, touch, and scent.˝

The Triggers of Influence, Persuasion, and Captivation are actively in use separately as well as collectively more and/or even more effective.

˝Two triggers, used together, can be stronger than either one alone.˝


Identifying Your Primary Trigger...

You’re already using triggers (whether you intend to or not, and whether you want to or not).
By a certain point in your life, you probably have an idea of your primary fascination trigger—the one that most closely embodies the way in which you fascinate others.
You might also have an idea of your secondary triggers.

While clarifying your triggers, and the ways in which you use them, it helps to print out a list of
the seven triggers to have in front of you:

LUST ...is the desire or craving for sensory gratification.
MYSTIQUE ...lures with a puzzle or unanswered question.
ALARM ...threatens with immediate consequences.
PRESTIGE ...earns respect through symbols of achievement.
POWER ...is command over others.
VICE ...tempts with “forbidden fruit,” causing us to step outside our usual
habits or behaviors.
TRUST ...comforts us with certainty and reliability.

Fascination shapes our actions and opinions in surprising ways.
An effective fascination plan harnesses this power.
Once you understand the triggers that drive your customers’ behavior and design your plan with your triggers and badges in mind, you can direct this force of attraction.

Are you using the right triggers, in the right way, to get your desired result?

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/danije...


We learned that for thousands of years, everyone from academics to ordinary folk viewed fascination as witchcraft.
Hopefully, by this point in time, we agree that fascination isn’t witchcraft, and can be measured, researched, and reevaluated.

Interesting survey and study as a result of it indicated as follow:
-We’re bored.
-Most people don’t feel fascinated.
-Fascination makes us feel more alive.
-The three main things we seek are relationships, trust, and fascination.

The fascination could be described as intense captivating.
When something is fascinating, it captures your attention in an unusually intense way.
It’s more than “interesting.”
It distracts you from other things around you and makes you want to pay complete attention.
You might be fascinated by a favorite book, a project at work, or even a new love.

Note that when something is fascinating, it is not inherently good or bad, only that it captures your full attention.

In terms of the role, fascination plays in our lives, it’s more than described above.

Fascination is a fundamental part of our relationships and our quality of life.
It affects how hard we work, who we marry, even how we feel about ourselves.

Fascination is a constant work in progress, ever-changing alongside technology, the environment, consumer attitudes—and feedback.

The wealth of successful organizations that more or less successfully pulled and/or have been pulling some or whole seven (7) triggers found place in the remarkable book.


You are already fascinating, using your natural strengths.
Anyone, and anything, can become more fascinating

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/under-...


Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.
~Maya Angelou

[MizzSandie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wasn’t fascinated by the book.
I was fascinated by the premise of it, sure. But the actual book; not really.
It seemed to state some very obvious things and throw in some examples for illustration, I assume to entice and build credibility, but to me it just got boring and gave me examples that wasn’t really ofmuch use and was overly simplified and thereby seemed contrived. It felt more like a showcasing and a bunch of namedropping, than it felt like it held actual new and useful information and I didn’t feel like I was actually learning something or understanding more of the complexity of what builds fascination or desire. Because yes there are some general factors and common denominators that are usual at work, but the thing is that people are also very particular, so what creates desire for one person, as a driving force for motivation too, isn’t the same as for another. And so ‘desire’ becomes too general a term (and a factor most people probably already knows plays a factor in motivation, without a degree in psychology as I have myself, or in marketing as the author has), and thereby loses its relevance and value as a describing factor.
The same goes for the other (supposedly key) factors, that yes, can and often do play an important role in human behavior and choices, but again, very differently for different people, in different situations how they relate and respond to these factors.
I assume that to most people it’s not rocket science that privilege, power, and alarm are at play in human interactions, culture or behavior.
And this book promises to broaden and deepen this subject and knowledge, but fails to deliver. There goes the ‘trust’. And hogs head might be a good marketing professional, who can execute and excel in that world, but as a teacher and a communicator in this format, I am left disappointed and won’t be a ‘returning customer’.

[YHC · Rating 3 out of 5]

lust, mystique, alarm, prestige, power, vice, and trust....these are the 7 factors to trigger human's fascination.
1. 欲望
如果触发了欲望，你会把他人拉得更近。他们会渴望你的信息，想要知道得更多，直到他们充分满足。
欲望的四大支柱：
·停止思考、启动感觉；
·让平凡的更感性；
·利用五种感官；
·戏谑与挑逗。
2. 神秘
触发了神秘，你就会鼓励他人对你的信息了解更多。他们会被吸引从而自己寻求答案。
神秘的四大支柱：
·引起好奇；
·保留信息；
·创造神话；
·限制访问。
3. 警报
使用警报触发器，你能迫使他们更急切地行动起来。他们会为了避免消极的后果而果断采取行动。
警报的五大支柱：
·定义后果
·制定最后期限
·增加可感知的危险；
·不是关注最可能发生的风险，而是关注最令人恐惧的；
·使用“悲痛”为积极的反应导航。
4. 威望
带有威望的信息会提升你的境界，引起羡慕或忌妒。
威望的四大支柱：
·建立标志；
·确定新标准；
·有限的可获得性；
·赢得威望。
5. 权力如果你有效地触发了权力，你就能控制他人。他们会顺从于你和你的信息。
权力的三大支柱：
·支配；
·控制环境；
·奖惩机制。
6. 罪恶通过触发罪恶，你的信息就能诱惑他人从常规的行为轨道上脱离。他们会跳出标准行为的条条框框。
罪恶的四大支柱：
·创造禁忌；
·引入迷途；
·定义绝对；
·眨眨眼。
7. 信任有了信任，你的信息就能安慰他人、放松他们的神经、把他们拉得更近。
信任的五大支柱：
·变得熟悉；
·重复再重复；
·保持真实；
·短时间内增强；
·让不健康的信息变得令人厌恶。

.................
你的潜在迷恋徽章：七个领域
·目的：你存在的理由；你的品牌的功能。
·核心信仰：指导你行动的价值观和原则；你的立足之本。
·传承：你的名声和历史；你的渊源与背景故事。
·产品：商品、服务或者你生产的信息。
·益处：购买产品的奖励承诺，可以是有形、明示的，也可以是抽象、微妙的。
·行动：你如何运作、指导。
·文化：所有能识别的关于你自身的特征，包括人格、行为模式和心态。
..........................

我们已经明白了施展魅力使人迷恋的能力并不是巫术或者催眠术。戴睡帽或者吃绿豌豆自发产生迷恋也成了笑谈。在今天这个扁平化的时代，迷恋甚至变成了一种更多人应该掌握的生活规律和常用工具，而不是危言耸听的鬼魅力量。“迷恋”源自人类自身潜意识中一种影响他人行为的自然本能。那么，要洞悉如何“被迷恋”的秘密，我们似乎不得不了解有效激活迷恋的7个触发器：欲望：创造刺激感官愉悦的热望神秘感：以未解之谜为诱饵警报：用消极的后果制造威胁威望：通过成就的象征赢得尊重权力：命令和控制罪恶：用“禁果”的诱惑，引发我们违反常规信任：以确定性和可靠性抚慰心灵




为什么我们需要迷恋·天量的分散我们注意力的选择；·正在崛起的“注意力缺失”时代；·赢得注意，而不是去关注；·屏蔽信息的能力；·信息时代已经发展为迷恋时代；·迷恋经济。

魅力信息的黄金法则·激发强烈即时的情感反应；·创造“粉丝”；·成为社会特定行为或价值观的“文化代表”；·引发讨论；·迫使竞争者们重新排队；·促进社会进步。

七大触发器如果被有效激发，这七大普遍适用的触发器能带来多种不同的反应，会强化我们身体上、情感上、脑力上的注意力。

[Chad Schultz · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were a few interesting anecdotes, but for the most part it was largely throwing a bunch of words at the listener, which quickly wash away like the surf on the shore. The book does allude to a tool the author has devised to help brands figure out their strengths; I think this would be much better suited as a tool which would help the user figure out their brand's strength, then walk them through specific recommendations for their specific situation. Instead, it just throws a lot of vague instructions for all different types of situations at the wall in the hopes that something will stick.
The appendix with the study results (a study made explicitly for the author) seems dubious as well. It's all about asking people what does and does not "fascinate" them in different arenas (their boss, their spouse, etc.), and I suspect survey takers may have had widely different interpretations, and that the survey questions were not necessarily scientific.
It's hard to really figure out the worthwhile takeaways I'm supposed to learn from this book. There are a few interesting and unusual marketing tactics, but a half-page bulleted list of those would have sufficed. Your time is likely better spent on other business books.

[Lucas · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book that helped me change my perspective on messaging and branding. The author presented really good material on the key trigger which includes: lust, mystic, vice, trust, alarm, prestige, and power. Knowledge, application, and awareness of these triggers can help one understand why people get enthralled by an idea, a TV series, a personality, etc. Fascination is truly a fascinating topic and starts to explain human behavior and why we do irrational or illogical things.

The is a great read for marketers or anyone who wants to launch a viral campaign. The reason why I only gave the book 3 stars was because of it wasn't always fascinating. The material was redundant at times and I felt the author was trying to sell me on joining her website.

[Marcy Kennedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book might be more useful for someone else, but it didn't really have much that I could use for my particular business. I also thought it would cover the topic more scientifically, but it seemed to be all personal experience and marketing. I also didn't like the early focus in the book on witchcraft.

Overall, it had some interesting information, but it wasn't as practical as I was hoping. The information wasn't covered in the depth I felt like it needed for people to really use it.

I listened to this as an audiobook.

[SVEN · Rating 3 out of 5]

7 Triggers:
Lust = anticipated pleasure overrules rationality
Mystique = solving
Threats mobilise not by potential impact but by relevance but
Prestige
Power
Vice
Trust

3 steps to Fascination:
* Evaluation = what distinguishes you from others and how are you connecting, wat is your primary trigger
* Develop
* Convince by setting & tracking Specific goals

[Steffen Leguisamo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Redundante, no aterriza y se enfoca en empresas . Anticuado y superficial . La forma de escribir es para mi , muy forzada . Este tipo de libros ya no tiene cabida , a mi me gustaría algo más personal

[Marius CEO · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simply fascinating.
A great book that proves to be truly all-encompassing. It explores influential triggers and subtle ways of persuasion in great detail and does not shy away from controversy.
Worth the read.

[Marcus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Claims to be more than a marketing book, but after completion, it's kind of just a marketing book. Interesting ideas for entrepreneurs to create a distinct story for their project(s), but beyond its business application, I don't find it useful.

[Vasilis d1af Apostolou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book on what makes people become fascinated with brands and products.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting points for marketers.

[Mariano · Rating 2 out of 5]

Did not fascinate

[Jamal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing look into the concepts behind standing out in a world where blending in seems almost unavoidable.

[Nikki Milton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating (see what I did there?) system for getting attention as a business. Loved the visuals and charts the most. Not sure if I'll implement her system but it was refreshing.

[Verena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Get tips, not enough logistical help.

[Shannon Enloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pretty interesting read. Had some good tidbits sprinkled in here and there and the last 4 chapters were my favorite so hang in there and finish it off.

[Derek Crager · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant
Brilliant
Brilliant