---
title: Identity and desire angles — selling who the buyer becomes
slug: identity-and-desire-selling-angles
summary: Angles that sell through the buyer's self-image rather than product features — mirror not product, bigger scarier problem, lived experience, sell the dream, remove blame, plus five imagination methods (flip the status, hijack the myth, hidden door, ritual, superpower).
domain: marketing
tags: [copywriting, positioning, brand, angles, psychology]
related: [headline-hooks-and-copy-frameworks, funnel-stage-copy-triggers, ads-get-clicks-no-conversions, name-the-unique-mechanism, human-desires-ad-angles]
sources: [yt:32uLdgfvuQ4, yt:BVI3edBtjx8]
updated: 2026-10-24
---

# Identity and desire angles

Use these when choosing the *angle* (big idea) for a page, ad or offer — especially when the product isn't objectively better. All from Joanna Wiebe ([[people/joanna-wiebe]]), illustrated with famous campaigns.

## TL;DR
- **Hold up a mirror, not your product**: reflect the customer's self-perception before explaining what the product does (Dove Real Beauty Sketches)[^1][^2].
- **Sell a bigger, scarier mouse, not a better mousetrap**: make the underlying problem more urgent, costly or embarrassing (Listerine turned "halitosis" into a social disaster)[^2].
- **Show the lived experience**, funny or painful (Poo-Pourri "Girls Don't Poop")[^2][^3].
- **Sell the dream** behind the purchase ("They laughed when I sat down at the piano…")[^3].
- **Remove blame**: relieve guilt or shame; "it's not your fault" (Always #LikeAGirl)[^4]. Ben Bennett's "blame shift" hook is the ad version ([[headline-hooks-and-copy-frameworks]]).
- **Take the cap off**: never make anything look like work — audit CTAs and signup flows for anything they don't need to hear yet[^5][^6].

## Details
**Five imagination methods** (from "The Secret Ways to Sell Anything")[^7]:

| Method | What it does | Example | Question to ask |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flip the status | Reframe the part of the category people quietly look down on as a mark of taste | Nespresso (Clooney, boutiques) beat technically superior Tassimo barcode pods[^7][^8] | What do people in this space feel a little embarrassed about? |
| Hijack the myth | Attach the brand to a story already installed in the audience's minds | Marlboro and the cowboy[^9][^10] | What myth already runs in my customer's head? |
| Open the hidden door | Teach people a world with its own language so they become "literate" — then generic options feel beneath them | Blue Bottle's free brewing video course[^11][^12] | What does my industry know that would make someone feel smarter? |
| Build the ritual | Turn a dull touchpoint into a small repeatable ceremony | Starbucks' name on the cup; Patagonia repairs[^13][^14] | Which dull moment — checkout, onboarding email, confirmation page, delivery notification — could feel like something? |
| Give them a superpower | Make them feel more capable than they believed | Stripe ("you can build now"), Twilio[^15][^16] | What could my customer do after finding me that they believed they couldn't? |

**For landing pages:** these shape the hero and the problem section — e.g. a course page that mirrors the student's identity ("for marketers who already know the basics", [[funnel-stage-copy-triggers]]), dimensionalises the cost of the problem, then names the mechanism ([[name-the-unique-mechanism]]). The ritual method is a reminder that the confirmation page and post-purchase emails are part of the sale.

## Disagreements / caveats
- These are brand-campaign case studies (often decades old, big budgets); direct-response pages still need proof, offer and a clear CTA.
- "Bigger, scarier mouse" and shock tactics can turn manipulative; Ben Bennett insists on speaking *to* existing anxieties rather than creating them ([[ads-get-clicks-no-conversions]]).

## See also
- [[headline-hooks-and-copy-frameworks]]

[^1]: yt:32uLdgfvuQ4 @ 06:00 — Joanna Wiebe
[^2]: yt:32uLdgfvuQ4 @ 07:31 — Joanna Wiebe
[^3]: yt:32uLdgfvuQ4 @ 09:06 — Joanna Wiebe
[^4]: yt:32uLdgfvuQ4 @ 10:41 — Joanna Wiebe
[^5]: yt:32uLdgfvuQ4 @ 12:14 — Joanna Wiebe
[^6]: yt:32uLdgfvuQ4 @ 13:24 — Joanna Wiebe
[^7]: yt:BVI3edBtjx8 @ 00:00 — Joanna Wiebe
[^8]: yt:BVI3edBtjx8 @ 00:48 — Joanna Wiebe
[^9]: yt:BVI3edBtjx8 @ 01:42 — Joanna Wiebe
[^10]: yt:BVI3edBtjx8 @ 03:19 — Joanna Wiebe
[^11]: yt:BVI3edBtjx8 @ 04:05 — Joanna Wiebe
[^12]: yt:BVI3edBtjx8 @ 05:39 — Joanna Wiebe
[^13]: yt:BVI3edBtjx8 @ 05:39 — Joanna Wiebe
[^14]: yt:BVI3edBtjx8 @ 07:13 — Joanna Wiebe
[^15]: yt:BVI3edBtjx8 @ 08:00 — Joanna Wiebe
[^16]: yt:BVI3edBtjx8 @ 09:31 — Joanna Wiebe