Legendary Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas signs an autograph in 1964. (photo courtesy of mitch59 on Flickr)
Under the cover darkness on a snowy March evening in 1984, a fleet of moving trucks pulled into the headquarters of the Baltimore Colts and proceeded to load up everything from the tackling dummies to office chairs and move everything to Indianapolis.
While rumors had been running rampant for months, there had been no announcement from the team and the abruptness and deceptiveness of the move came as a shock to the fan base. “We drank a lot of beer and cried. I remember physically sitting in front of the TV weeping. I mean, they had taken something dear away from me,” recounts one member of the “Colts Corral” fan club.
The Baltimore Colts Marching Band had been playing for the team since 1947 and its members were particularly devastated. But as a small stroke of luck would have it, the band uniforms were at the cleaners when the move happened. When contacted by the band’s President, the owner said, “I can’t give you the uniforms, but maybe you should come by tonight and take the van for a walk.” Later that evening, some band members took the uniforms and, concerned that they would be sued if any of them kept the uniforms at their homes, stored them in a mausoleum. “Coming out of the mausoleum, it’s as if it was the band that wouldn’t die. We would keep going until there was a team back.” Bill Turcan, Band Vice President.
The band formed a non-profit organization and for the next 12 years, organized fundraisers to keep the band together. “Out of stubbornness, we were gonna stay. We were gonna bring the NFL back here.” John Zeimann, Band President.
Maryland State House (photo courtesy of Ion628 at en.wikipedia)
Several NFL expansions passed Baltimore by but the band persisted. Maryland Governor William Shaeffer was fighting for funding to build stadiums to keep their baseball team and attract a NFL franchise, but as the state’s budget meeting approached the opposition was firmly aligned against it.
“We got the idea – forget trying to convince them with logic. We gotta get to the heart.” As the legislators approached the state house for their evening session, the band had gathered on the steps handing out flyers and playing the Baltimore Colts fight song. In the first order of business that evening, the legislature passed a proclamation in favor of funding a stadium.
On November 6, 1995 the Cleveland Browns announced they were moving to Baltimore.
Emotion succeeded where logic failed.
How We Decide
Many people are aware that dopamine is the brain chemical responsible for triggering pleasure responses. But the fact is that it is dopamine regulates all of our emotional responses and plays a major role in how we learn. Experiments with rewards and punishments have shown that dopamine neurons are responsible for evaluating the difference between our predictions of outcomes versus actual outcomes. They predict future events.
When we’re right – which is to say our prediction was correct – then there is a dopamine response that gives us pleasure. However, says Jonah Lehrer, author of “How We Decide” (Amazon affiliate link), “while dopamine neurons get excited by predictable rewards… they get even more excited by surprising ones. The purpose of this dopamine response is to make the brain pay attention to new, and potentially important, stimuli.”
When our brain receives stimuli that invoke the basic emotional responses of fear or sexual arousal, our amygdale (or lizard brain) begins to secrete dopamine. Therefore, these emotional reactions don’t simply get our attention – they actually alter our brain chemistry and create stronger memories than non-emotional experiences.
So whether you’re working on a sales pitch, writing a blog post, or composing a cover letter, tap into the emotions of your audience in order to make them more memorable.
The Band That Wouldn’t Die
The idea for this blog post occurred to me after watching Barry Levinson’s documentary featured on ESPN’s “30 for 30.” You can watch the trailer here.