The J Shape gives you a lot of freedom. This is the mood piece Shape, the portrait Shape, the Shape where you want to take the listener down some rabbit holes. You have complete freedom to say whatever you want for most of this script. You can be sarcastic, go on a rant, take the side of your competitors, or even agree with your biggest critics.
But there’s a catch. You must tie the enjoyable misdirection firmly back to your product, big idea, campaign, or brand. Your audience is counting on you to resolve loose ends. If you have a concept that can pull that off, they’ll be thrilled to listen again and again.
Similar to the W Shape and the Z Shape, your first line needs to do some heavy lifting. For J Shapes, that means saying something so intriguing that the listener has no choice but to continue. They want to go back to their grocery lists, but what they just heard is too weird, too fascinating, too confusing, too unexpected, just too much to ignore.
Flying First Class is all very well, but in the end, it's still public transport … —from “Flying First Class,” Air Asia
Sometimes, the first line is the start of a story, any story, usually about something completely different than your brand. (If it were about your brand, it’d be a W Shape. The non sequitur is what makes it a J Shape.)
I shouldn't be alive today … —from “Yusra Mardini,” Under Armour
A disproportionally high number of J Shape scripts are in the second person. I believe the reason is that second-person scripts do much better when the context is provided at the end.
You are a good person. You spend time with your family. You workout at the gym. You conserve water while showering. You like nice clothes. You give to charity. You recycle. You drive a Prius but you use your bike when you can. You enjoy the occasional distraction at work and you always send a card on Mother's Day. Always … —from “Follow the Frog,” Rain Forest Alliance
You can also start your J Shape by just describing details. I like to think of this as scene painting. No hard edges. Just brush strokes. You’re not giving the listeners anything to hold on to. You’re just providing flashes that start to illuminate the world. The “After Hours Athlete” manifesto does this beautifully:
Backspin on a warped table under a bad light. A kiss off the 8-ball, a bank on the six. Double bull on a single throw, three pints in … —from “After Hours Athlete,” Puma
At this point, you might wonder what I mean by the listener having no context during the Hook. Don’t all of these openings lay the foundation in some way?
Yes, they’re all starting their own stories, narratives, or arcs. But contrary to S Shape and Z Shape manifestos, we don’t know why our brand is talking about them. We don’t know the POV. We’re not being asked to connect this delightful thing to the brand yet. That’s the no-context part. Put another way, the context we lack is not the what. It’s the why. For J Shapes, the why comes later.
To illustrate this, let’s look at one of my favorite opening sentences of any manifesto. It’s from Krispy Kreme. The insight is brilliant, and I can’t believe they sold it:
Donuts are bad for you … —from “Donuts Are Bad for You,” Krispy Kreme
This is just amazing. I can’t imagine any donut brand saying this. I can’t imagine any maker of desserts anywhere saying this. It’s the sentence that completely undercuts their product offering.
But notice how we don’t know why we’re being told this. We don’t know Krispy Kreme’s take on this yet. In an extreme example, Krispy Kreme could go on to say that people who say this aren’t to be trusted. Or they could say that these are just people who have never had Krispy Kreme donuts. Or they could say that people who say this are fools who don’t have enough experience in life to know what good or bad is.
All of those are possible versions of the Why that we could learn later. If this were a Z Shape script, we would have our answer in the next few sentences. But since this is a J Shape, the script is going to have a lot of fun before the answer is revealed.
I refer to all the fun that J Shapes get to have as the Spectacle. And it’s Step 2.
Now that your hook is in place, it’s time to go nuts. J Shape scripts aren’t always lighthearted or sarcastic, but even the more serious ones are built to be completely engaging. That’s why this is called the Spectacle. You’re putting on a show. Listeners have stopped to watch your street performance. Your job now is to be so riveting that you get them to stay.