Ghosts Live In The Gap

Tension needs a gap.

No gap, no ache.
No ache, no attention.
No attention, no story.

Beethoven knew this before marketing departments had quarterly planning decks and lukewarm conference room hummus.

In the “Pathétique” Sonata, he gives us the feeling of home, then wanders an octave and a whole step above it. The ear knows where it wants to go. Back down. Back home. Back to the warm little cottage of the tonic where the soup is on and the chair remembers your ass.

But Beethoven, glorious rascal that he is, does not go straight there.

He jumps down, beyond home.

Now we have two little machines arguing inside the listener’s skull. One says, “Resolve this thing.” The other says, “It’s pleasant that you just filled the gap you made.” So he moves away from home while also satisfying the distance he created. He delays the obvious answer just long enough for the answer to feel earned.

Then, two measures later, he brings us home.

Sweet relief. Musical oxygen. The listener exhales and does not even know they were holding their breath.

That is storytelling.

That is marketing.

I’m seeing too much marketing that’s the equivalent of a sandwich board yelling about software outside a dentist’s office.

The marketer’s job is to create the gap.

Between how things are and how they could be.
Between what the customer believes and what they are starting to suspect.
Between the mess they tolerate and the better world that keeps tapping on the window wearing tap shoes.

Great messaging does not simply say, “Here is the answer.”

It makes the audience feel the distance.

Then it delays the resolution just enough for them to want it.

Without it, your product is just a note played in an empty room.

Stay Positive & Make Marketing That’s Music To Their Ears