Courtesy of Hale Popopi
Came across this brilliant piece of copywriting advice from Copyblogger and how the “Rule of three” works universally in capturing people’s attention. It is simple, effective and oh so true.
Here’s a quote from the post:
…information presented in groups of three sticks in our heads better than other clusters of items. For example:
“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”
“Government of the people, by the people, for the people”
“Friends, Romans, Countrymen”
“Blood, sweat and tears”
“Location, location, location”
“Father, Son and Holy Spirit”
“Faith, Hope and Charity”
“Mind, body, spirit”
“Stop, Look and Listen”
“Sex, Lies and Videotape”
“I came, I saw, I conquered”
Perhaps the next time you are tasked to write an advertisement, a speech or powerpoint presentations, see if you can dissect them into 3 key points.
Maybe it has to do with the fact that we live in a world that is very much tri-une in nature. The physical cosmos consists of space, time and matter. Space is 3-dimensional, time is past, present, future. Matter is solid, liquid, gaseous.
Interesting! When I read your headline in my RSS feeds, I thought you were writing about religion.
I also think the 3 bullet points format is effective, as mentioned in the original post.
Merry Christmas ahead!
chun see,
Great analysis. Yeah, I never thought about it that way. Of course, the other thing is that we have three meals – breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus the three most important rites in our lives are birth, marriage and death.
Priscilla,
Haha…. I think that photo came from a religious group somewhere. Looks a little mystical eh?
According to Wikipedia, in Christian tradition the Magi are also known as the Three Wise Men, The Three Kings or Kings from the east.