The Curious Engineer

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Creative Samba

creativesamba.substack.com

Snackable stories good enough to train your mind to think more like a copywriter. Even better for learning and connecting the unobvious dots between copywriting, marketing and psychology. Click to read Creative Samba, by Miguel Ferreira, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.

Essays / personal

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387 from 12 Aug 2019 to 25 Oct 2026
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weekly (66 in the last year)
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personal blog
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2026 55

  1. Find out what consumers are already doing
  2. Why a $5 price tag looks like bad sushi 🍣
  3. When the Spotlight Effect strikes
  4. What is your hesitation worth? 💸
  5. Thinking like a copywriter opens the door to new possibilities.
  6. The magical art of reframing perceptions.
  7. Make your message relatable, not ignorable.
  8. Use the messenger effect in a radical new way
  9. To consumers price is a signal
  10. The Contagion Effect
  11. Thinking like a copywriter opens the door to new possibilities.
  12. A surprising marketing lesson from Schwarzenegger
  13. Victims of groupthink and the bandwagon effect
  14. You're not the one being sold to
  15. Times change. Technology changes. But brand building fundamentals never change.
  16. You cannot buy virality. But you can provoke it.
  17. Distinctiveness is the way out.
  18. Being small doesn't mean you can't think BIG.
  19. Headlines are like doors
  20. Involving the consumer
  21. It's totally fine to avoid what's trendy.
  22. A reminder: Good ads cost exactly the same as bad ads.
  23. The punk who outsmarted boring bottled water brands
  24. Assumptions are often a barrier that block creativity.
  25. Small changes, BIG BIGly BIG results
  26. Choose your words carefully
  27. An irrational 24-hour experiment.
  28. In marketing, things don’t always have to make sense.
  29. 5 hours from now this is gone.
  30. The copywriting bundle that disappears tomorrow.
  31. The copywriting bundle I probably shouldn't be selling at this price.
  32. Copywriter thinking isn’t obvious. That’s exactly why it helps you sell more.
  33. Choose the reaction you’re willing to risk.
  34. Adapt your message to their worldview, not yours.
  35. Every cult brand starts by delighting the misfits
  36. When facts don't sell, beliefs do.
  37. The theft that changed the Mona Lisa's value.
  38. Most campaigns pick the media first, clever campaigns let the idea drive the media
  39. Don't tell people the future. Show them what's happening (like right now).
  40. Be the smallest entry point to the biggest stage.
  41. There's always a new way of telling an old story.
  42. Nobody owned winter beer. Now somebody does.
  43. The accidental meaning upgrade 🙊
  44. If you're not a brand, you're replaceable
  45. Don't give consumers everything. Give them almost everything.
  46. How Uber Australia reframed freedom (Spoiler: It’s not behind the wheel)
  47. Lead with trouble, end with truth.
  48. 🦈 Facts inform. Drama persuades.
  49. Everything a brand does is advertising.
  50. As a copywriter I have this weird but fun little habit.
  51. To sell something new, make it feel familiar.
  52. 🦈 Position your brand against a villain
  53. 🦈 Dangerous headlines that get you into good trouble
  54. Humans love weird (like poop coffee). Even if they say they don’t.
  55. An embarrassing €600,000 mistake

2025 58

  1. What happens when there's only one choice
  2. Use a metaphor to make the abstract visceral.
  3. Wear the negatives like a badge.
  4. Show the human mess that leads to the smile — not the smile itself.
  5. Most brands take the safe route. That’s precisely why yours shouldn’t.
  6. How to make the unbelievable instantly believable
  7. Hijack pride and twist it your way
  8. Make the reader do the “aha,” not you.
  9. Make the invisible visible
  10. Frame the alternative as ridiculous, and suddenly your choice wins.
  11. Hack a familiar ad format
  12. Borrow drama from another field
  13. Position your brand against a villain
  14. Speak their Inglish
  15. Good copy doesn’t change the product. It changes how people see it.
  16. Make simplicity part of the appeal
  17. Find the unchanging truth 🤯
  18. Use social proof in a radical new way
  19. Mock the status quo to highlight the appeal of your alternative
  20. Tell the truth, but make it interesting
  21. Frame the alternative as ridiculous, and suddenly your choice wins.
  22. Hijack pride and twist it your way
  23. Show your product thriving where it “shouldn’t.”
  24. Turn invisibility into a virtue.
  25. Good creative work feels like a refreshing pause from banality.
  26. This is your business, you can make your own rules.
  27. Turn frustration into subversion.
  28. Become a copywriting ace with grace
  29. When everyone else is shouting, whisper.
  30. A copywriter’s job is to "cross the line"
  31. The Streisand Effect in reverse
  32. Speak their Inglish
  33. Where would you put the wrong sign?
  34. Constraints aren’t enemies to creativity; they’re its fuel.
  35. SensaYtional kreativity
  36. Clever brands don't try to change culture. They understand it.
  37. Logic may win arguments, but emotion wins behavior.
  38. 🥊 Throw your website in the ring.
  39. The most valuable insights are surprising.
  40. Headlines are like doors
  41. Facts inform. Drama persuades.
  42. Find the unchanging truth.
  43. Don’t tell people your brand is fresh. Prove it.
  44. Make a distinctive claim, not a superlative claim.
  45. When creative output is free, taste becomes a VIP pass.
  46. Sometimes the problem is the opportunity
  47. The power of unusual combinations
  48. Reading is a choice
  49. Assume nothing when you're writing copy
  50. The power of One. One idea and nothing else.
  51. To sell something old, make it feel new.
  52. Hack the medium with a bang
  53. Use more coherence markers
  54. Tell an old story in a fresh new way
  55. The Jaws effect
  56. Dramatize the solution (so it creates a harmless new problem)
  57. Despite what research said
  58. In 2025 let's embrace more creative freedom 🏴‍☠️

2024 57

  1. Good ideas survive the test of time.
  2. Make it rhyme, people will trust you big time
  3. Choosing the right words
  4. Compare then contrast
  5. Anyone can state facts about a product. But that's not enough.
  6. Why reverse testimonials are the punk way to build trust
  7. Reversals make brands more memorable
  8. The Sideways Effect
  9. Write the way your audience speaks
  10. Find a surprising alternative use.
  11. Communicate your truest truth. One truth, and nothing else.
  12. Reversals make brands more memorable
  13. Get people moving
  14. A good analogy can sell boring products
  15. Our minds filter reality
  16. Compare then contrast
  17. Creativity can’t be copied
  18. A good analogy can solve any problem
  19. Small brands must be more creative. Or they die.
  20. “We know something you don’t.”
  21. The power of an unignorable call to action
  22. The “lucky invoice” lottery
  23. AI-generated ads fail the costly signaling test
  24. How an ad man saved the Greek Economy
  25. The Von Restorff effect in action at the Olympics
  26. Creativity requires constantly questioning
  27. Nobody reads ads. Or do they?
  28. A dumb £104,129 sludge
  29. Outsourcing decisions
  30. Going viral 481 years before Instagram or TikTok even existed.
  31. The “lucky invoice” lottery
  32. Write the way you speak
  33. Self-persuasion is the best kind of persuasion
  34. If you can’t solve a problem, break the rules.
  35. Dramatize the solution (and you’ll sell more)
  36. Implying popularity boosts desire.
  37. People want what others desire.
  38. “Dull is expensive commercially”
  39. A story about brown sugar and mimetic desire
  40. A good metaphor can change people’s minds
  41. Make your website memorable, not ignorable
  42. Shifting brand mental associations
  43. Getting attention isn’t enough
  44. Give fans a reason to be missed
  45. People want things they can't have
  46. Price is a feeling
  47. The road to unintended consequences
  48. Create clarity through contrast
  49. Stage a spectacle
  50. Simplify the complicated
  51. Being boring costs way more than being weird.
  52. Fooling the competition
  53. The message matters more than the media
  54. Small brands must be more creative. Or they die.
  55. Admitting product flaws makes you more believable
  56. Real creativity requires courage, not more cash.
  57. Be interesting. Because most brands aren’t.

2023 64

  1. Humans love weird (even if they say they don't)
  2. Modernity isn't always the answer
  3. Make your brand synonymous with the category
  4. Thinking beyond constraints
  5. If you’re not different, you’re forgettable
  6. Good copy uses your audience's language, not yours.
  7. Facts aren't enough to change people's minds.
  8. Real creativity requires courage, not more cash.
  9. Build campaigns for impact, not clickbait
  10. Tell the truth, but make it interesting
  11. Change minds and perceptions, not objective reality.
  12. Small brands have a business advantage
  13. Be very specific, very informative - and very interesting
  14. Getting your brand WANTED is the answer
  15. The art of outrageous exaggeration
  16. Humans are just like monkeys: Copycats
  17. Spotting the opportunity
  18. Discover what's the pressure point, then reframe it.
  19. It's OK to avoid rejecters of your brand
  20. Changing perceptions is better than changing reality
  21. Ask more naive questions
  22. Reducing friction provokes sales
  23. Build campaigns for impact, not clickbait
  24. Make your brand stand for something
  25. How to shake things up in a low-interest category
  26. The Streisand Effect strikes again
  27. Think More Like a Copywriter (💥Cha-ching💥)
  28. Sometimes labels do more harm than good
  29. The weirder the idea, the stronger its impact
  30. Maximize your chances of getting lucky
  31. Changing perceptions is better than changing reality
  32. 🎂 Birthday lil gift from me to you
  33. Never overburden your copy with ostentatious erudition.
  34. How to shake things up in a low-interest category
  35. The psychology of queuing
  36. Your biggest perception problem might be your biggest strength
  37. Good creativity thrives on oddness, eccentricity and even offence
  38. Something a lil different
  39. Why stand out when everyone’s mundane?
  40. Writing dialogue that connects (with a va-va-voom factor)
  41. The known probabilities Vs unknown possibilities dilemma
  42. AI can’t beat weird
  43. Make your brand desirable, not ignorable
  44. Where you eat represents your social status
  45. Your biggest perception problem might be your biggest strength
  46. Nobody reads long copy anymore (Or do they?)
  47. Marketing needs more street smarts
  48. The art of outrageous exaggeration
  49. Think less about targeting, think more about category entry points
  50. How to write headlines (without sounding like they were written by a robot AI copywriting overlord)
  51. People believe what they want to believe
  52. Glorify what they’re already doing
  53. If everyone in your industry goes Pop, do the opposite and go Punk.
  54. Constraints are a bliss for creativity
  55. Make your brand more desirable
  56. The copywriter must be four people
  57. Strive for the Aston Martin Effect
  58. Nobody reads long copy anymore (Or do they?)
  59. Glorify what they’re already doing
  60. Make the alternative a little bit more fun
  61. Seeing what no one else sees
  62. Reframing the problem, creatively devilishly mercilessly
  63. Maximize your chances of getting lucky
  64. Good old ideas aren't old fashioned.

2022 62

  1. Telling the truth is disarming
  2. Finding relatable truths
  3. Friction is bad for business
  4. Make your message relatable or risk being invisible
  5. Technology can't draw a crowd
  6. Tension is a good thing
  7. Make more profitable mistakes
  8. Do the little things that resonate with the misfits
  9. The Tale of Rita Harris
  10. Good ideas can come from anywhere
  11. Getting more attention from the right people
  12. More choice isn't always better
  13. When a chimpanzee beats Pro Politicians
  14. The “Keeping up with the Joneses” effect
  15. Don't mistake exposure for impact
  16. Facts are facts. But facts alone don't persuade.
  17. Instead of reducing prices, change your story
  18. Spice up your copy with a good bit of personification
  19. The absurd power of paradox
  20. The King Of Puns
  21. Good copywriting needs a good dose of drama (Plop plop, fizz fizz)
  22. Friction is bad for business
  23. The power of honesty
  24. Getting into good trouble
  25. Finding your product's inherent drama
  26. Fans will be fans
  27. Fooled by randomness: Why our brains are pattern-seeking machines
  28. The consumer is the only thing that matters
  29. The “Keeping up with the Joneses” effect
  30. The most important search engine isn't Google, it's your brain
  31. Hunt for what consumers need and communicate a want
  32. Be as bold as you can get away with
  33. What do Cocaine hippos and ad tech have in common?
  34. People like things they've seen before
  35. Good creative work is a refreshing pause from banality
  36. The #1 deadly sin of copywriting: inflating weak ideas with boastfulness
  37. Keeping a brand in people's minds
  38. Writing copy in a clever or witty or clear way isn’t enough
  39. Don’t sell a product, hunt for what consumers need and communicate a want
  40. Finding a product's inherent drama (Hint: It involves a bit of detective work)
  41. Ideas, unlike people, age in reverse
  42. Reverse the obvious
  43. The #1 deadly sin of copywriting: inflating weak ideas with boastfulness
  44. Let the idea drive the media
  45. Learn to look at things like a copywriter
  46. Copywriting without imagination is mere exhibitionism
  47. When clever thinking challenges the status quo
  48. Love or indifference at first paragraph
  49. The first rule of creativity: resist the naysayers
  50. "Fuck the poor"
  51. People don’t buy products, people buy stories that turn them on
  52. "Real is good. Interesting is better."
  53. What do people want?
  54. Copywriting without imagination is mere exhibitionism
  55. Don't let optimism bias fool you
  56. Sometimes being a "good enough" brand is good enough
  57. The potent power of Powerisms
  58. People don’t buy products, people buy stories that turn them on
  59. When brands ignore the impact of the Streisand effect
  60. The red sneakers effect and why breaking conventions can make people respect you more
  61. Jesus & The Halo Effect
  62. Giving voltage to product descriptions

2021 48

  1. Making your copy come alive (AKA "Best of 2021")
  2. As Bill Bernbach said, “A principle isn’t a principle unless it costs you money”
  3. “You probably won't like it.”
  4. The art of Kishōtenketsu
  5. The Bob Levenson test
  6. Fighting what-ifitis online
  7. Riding the BIG waves
  8. Find what turns people on
  9. Forging Warhol
  10. Reframing $1.00 french fries
  11. How to become a topic of conversation
  12. Why 98% of websites nowadays suuuuuck so bad
  13. Touch Your Footballs
  14. "Who the hell is T_ _ _ _ H_ _ _ _ _ _ _?"
  15. Sometimes being a "good enough" brand is good enough
  16. Riding the BIG waves
  17. How to become a topic of conversation
  18. Water in Majorca
  19. The art of Kishōtenketsu
  20. The red sneakers effect and why breaking conventions can make people respect you more
  21. The Lionfish invasion
  22. "Want Loyalty? Get a Dog"
  23. Change the promise, not the product
  24. Half fans (And why creativity is subtraction)
  25. Metaphorical thinking is a business advantage
  26. What do consumers value more? "Time spent" OR "money saved?
  27. Don't sell, charm them
  28. Hacking consumer indifference and same-category clutter
  29. How an ad campaign helped end Colombia's savage 52-year civil war
  30. Hidden Fridges. 🍺 And why people are your best media
  31. Hijacking censorship
  32. The Boris Becker Tongue Effect
  33. How Subaru saved its business in America 🚘 🌈
  34. "Expense this. Eat this." 🍔
  35. Humor is a powerful...persuasion tool
  36. They all laughed when MTV founders said, "We're launching a 24-hour rock ’n’roll channel"
  37. "A vaccine is waiting for you."
  38. Simplify, then exaggerate
  39. Two tiny stories about the art of writing to persuade
  40. A psychology lesson from Captain James Cook (Hint: it involves sauerkraut)
  41. Repetition is powerful, repetition is memorable, repetition is persuasive ✍️
  42. The choice architecture of a "Press for Champagne" button 🍾
  43. Goat Zoom Calls 🐐 💻
  44. Marta's lipstick 💄 ⚽
  45. Are you a chocolate eater? Or do you eat chocolate a lot?
  46. Taking a moment to salute a creative genius (spoiler alert: it's a 9-year old girl scout from Canada)
  47. What's the pressure point (for good creativity)?
  48. Why using these words & phrases is like casting a spell on your readers (in a good way)

2020 37

  1. The sludge trap
  2. So what's the concept?
  3. Don't mess with Texas
  4. The persuasive way to use numbers
  5. The persuasion power of the word "because". Because humans are weirdos
  6. Two-sided messages: they sound stupid. And they work
  7. Write like Warren Buffett, in Plain English
  8. Why using active voice makes your copy easier to read
  9. How to be the rare pink sheep in a World of white sheeps
  10. Use your audience’s language, not yours
  11. The Munich Agreement Fiasco — And another copywriting rule to make your writing shine brighter than gold
  12. Breaking the Fourth Wall in copywriting
  13. A little technique to write unignorable headlines —handle objections right away
  14. Always sell a big idea
  15. How Pro copywriters beat writer’s block? Try PAS.
  16. A good ol' copywriting friend called AIDCA
  17. How to write compelling benefits. So you can persuade people to open their wallets and buy whatever you’re selling (even a booooooring product like termite killing foam)
  18. Style elements and how they can help you write powerful potent persuasive copy
  19. The Netflix copywriting technique. And the importance of voice, tone and style
  20. Changing food habits and the art of self-persuasion
  21. The Concorde Fallacy and why people make bad decisions
  22. Italian cars, a cool math experiment, and how the anchoring bias influences the way you make decisions
  23. Confirmation bias, and why it’s so hard to persuade rejecters of your brand
  24. The Barry Manilow t-shirt experiment and how the Spotlight Effect affects your business
  25. Rolls-Royce and how "the framing effect" influences how people make choices
  26. Why people tend to rely on mental shortcuts & biases when making quick decisions
  27. Two systems: What marketers don't know (Plus a bonus ✍🏻 6 word copywriting challenge)
  28. Karate lessons for your creative brain
  29. These strippers are making lemonade out of lemons 🍋 during the COVID-19 pandemic
  30. Japan's "Human Accidents" and the fascinating psychology of Japanese train stations
  31. Creativity can save lives (and your business)
  32. Lateral thinking during troubled times
  33. A 7,000-pound problem
  34. Connecting the dots through Port wine
  35. Feeding the baby rabbits
  36. 15 extra minutes (David Bowie and the art of influencing people, not manipulating them)
  37. Belgian biscuits, packaging & why copywriting matters more than you think

2019 6

  1. The Tesla of Bikes and the power of counterintuitive and small ideas
  2. Faking funerals
  3. Lateral thinking and unexpected honey tasters
  4. Mokusatsu: One word, different meanings and the A-bomb
  5. A 33-year spell
  6. Why reality isn't as logical as marketers, researchers and economists think