Latest / The Copywriting Podcast with Fexingo: Sales Letters, Headlines, and Persuasive Writing / How a Fictional Resume Landed a Real Job
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's this famous marketing experiment from 1966. A man named Jerry Harvey — he was a professor at George Washington University — he submitted a completely fictional resume to a real company. Just to see what would happen. Luna: Wait — like, he made up a candidate? Lucas: Exactly. He invented a person named 'John A. Smith,' gave him a fake background, fake references, the works. And the resume wasn't even that impressive on paper — no Ivy League, no Fortune 500 experience. Luna: But he got an interview, right? I feel like I've heard a version of this. Lucas: He got multiple interviews. The company actually flew 'John A. Smith' out for an in-person meeting. And here's the part that matters for us: the resume was a story. It wasn't a list of bullet points. It read like a narrative — 'John started his career at X, then took a risk to move into Y, and that taught him Z.' Luna: So the narrative structure made it feel more real, even though it was completely fabricated. Lucas: Right. And that's the psychological principle at work here. When information is presented as a story, our brains process it differently. It's what researchers call 'cognitive fluency' — stories feel easier to understand and believe. Luna: There was a Stanford study a few years back — actually, maybe a decade now — that tested exactly this. They gave people a list of facts about a charity, and then a narrative version of the same facts. The narrative version raised significantly more donations. Lucas: Yeah, and the Journal of Marketing Research published something similar around 2020. They found that a story — even a short one, like a two-sentence origin story — reduced skepticism and increased purchase intent, compared to just listing features. The effect was around a 20 to 30 percent lift. Luna: But there's a line, right? Jerry Harvey's experiment was deceptive. He was testing a hypothesis, but in real marketing, you can't just make things up. Lucas: That's a fair pushback. And I want to be clear — I'm not advocating for fiction in your copy. What I'm saying is that the of a story can be applied to true information. You don't have to invent anything. You just have to arrange what's real into a narrative arc. Luna: So give me an example. How would you do that for, say, a B2B software company? Lucas: Let's use a real one. There's a fintech company — I won't name them because they're private — but they send out a monthly email newsletter. Their old format was just: 'Here are our new features. Here's how they work. Click here to learn more.' Open rate around 22 percent, click-through around 3 percent. Luna: Pretty standard B2B fare. Lucas: Standard and forgettable. So they rewrote the lead email as a story. They started with: 'Last quarter, we noticed that one of our customers was spending 40 hours a week on manual reconciliation. So our head of product sat down with them, mapped out the process, and built a tool that cut that to 15 minutes.' That's a two-sentence origin story. Luna: And what happened? Lucas: Open rate went to 31 percent. Click-through went to 4.8 percent. That's a 38 percent lift on click-through from just adding a narrative frame. Luna: And the information was all true. They just told it as a story instead of a list. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the takeaway for today. Any piece of copy — a sales letter, a landing page, a LinkedIn profile, even a resume — benefits from being structured as a story. The formula is simple: a character, a conflict, and a resolution. Luna: Although I'd add — the character doesn't have to be a person. It can be a company, or even a product, as long as there's a before and after, a problem and a solution. Lucas: Great point. So the character is the protagonist, the conflict is the pain point, and the resolution is your product or service. That's it. That's the narrative arc. Luna: And you can apply it to any format. I've seen it work in a 300-word email and a 10-page white paper. Lucas: Right. So next time you're writing copy, try this: before you write a single word, sketch out the story. Who is the hero? What do they want? What's stopping them? How do they get what they want? If you answer those questions, you have a narrative. And then you just write it naturally. Luna: And if you want to test it, you can always run an A/B test. But honestly, the research is pretty convincing. Stories win, almost every time. Lucas: Speaking of which — if today's episode gave you an idea that you actually used in your own copy, and if that was worth, say, the price of a coffee to you, there's a link where you can buy us one. It's buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: Yeah, listener support is what keeps this show ad-free and independent. And we genuinely appreciate it. Lucas: So back to the Jerry Harvey experiment. One thing I didn't mention — after he got the interview, he actually went to it. Under the fake name. And he said it was one of the most uncomfortable experiences of his life. Luna: I bet. But it proved the point: a story can override skepticism, even when the evidence is thin. Lucas: Exactly. Use that power responsibly. And maybe don't fake a resume. Luna: Good advice. I'll stick to two-sentence origin stories.