“Silence is golden. Duct tape is silver.” The wit of these 7 words is rooted in the fact that the second sentence is an anomaly – an unexpected intrusion into the oft-repeated idea that silence is golden. The anomaly is then brought to closure and resolved in the mind of the listener. Duct tape is, in fact, silver. You smile a little.Bad ads leave no gaps and have no anomalies. Everything is stated clearly. No questions form in the mind of the customer.Good ads intrigue the customer and arouse their curiosity. Online marketers call this “engagement.”Novelists, screenwriters and storytellers have been intriguing us for decades, yet few people in advertising ever bother to study how they do it.Good news: I am one of those few people.Good storytellers use gaps and anomalies to trick the reader/listener/viewer into supplying the information they intentionally left out.Result: engagement.But… it’s up to your reader/listener/viewer to find resolution and bring closure to your mystery. Will he or she be able to piece it together and figure it out?Here’s an example of an effective ad that uses gaps and anomalies to elevate the interest of the listener:Guy2: You heard about John and Elisabeth?Guy1: Never thought he’d do it.Guy2: I never thought she’d say YES. [both laugh]Guy1: She definitely could’ve done better.Guy2: Yeah. I think John knows that, too.Guy1: Did he go to Ramsey’s?Guy2: Yeah, he got that part right, but he was about to mess it all up.Guy1: How?Guy2: He was just gonna hand it to her like it was a box of cookies.Guy1: Who saved him?Guy2: His ring consultant at Ramsey’s asked him how he planned to propose.Guy1: Yeah, mine asked me, too.Guy2: John didn’t have a plan, so his consultant said, “Hey, you’re giving her a ring from the Heart of New Orleans collection. Why not give it to her in the Heart of New Orleans?”Guy1: Please tell me he’s gonna follow through on that.Guy2: Yeah, he’s putting together a big master plan.Guy 1: Every town should have a Ramsey’s.Guy 2: Definitely.ROY: Rrrramsey’s Diamond Jewelers, on Veterans at I-10 in Metairie and on the West Bank in Fountain Park Centre on Manhattan.Caroline: and at Ramseys dot com.How long did it take you to figure out that John had asked Elisabeth to marry him? Yet the characters never say marry, marriage, engaged, engagement or proposed. Likewise, the fact that Ramsey’s is a jewelry store was left unsaid until the announcer finally mentions it in his closing tag.Here’s another ad – written on the same day – that leaves out a different kind of information. This ad features two characters that have been in this radio campaign together 52 weeks a year for more than a dozen years.Sarah: Shopping for an engagement ring at Spence is different from every other jewelry store on earth.Sean: [doubtful.] That’s a pretty big statement. You’re going to need to back that...