This morning with my daughter, Nora, was an absolute blast.
By “blast,” I mean a relentless assault of wailing, clapping, and desperate attempts to keep the peace through song.
🎶 “The wheels on the bus go round and round!”
👏 Clap. Clap. Clap.
🚨 “WWWAAAAAaaahhhh!”
🎶 “There was a farmer had a dog, E-I-E-I-O!”
👏 Clap. Clap. Clap.
🚨 “WWWAAAAAaaahhhh!”
Nothing worked. My usual bag of nursery rhyme tricks failed me.
Plus, I realized something embarrassing—I don’t actually know the lyrics to most of these songs.
(Seriously, who the fromage is Frère Jacques?)
Out of options, staring helplessly at a red-faced banshee, the only song that popped into my head was…
🎄 The Christmas Song.
And instead of singing, I decided to hum.
🎶 “Hmmm HMMMM hmmmm-ing hmm hm HMM hmm HMMM…”
And just like that…
Silence.
Nora stopped mid-wail and cracked the biggest grin I’d ever seen.
Apparently, all I needed to do was never stop humming, and everything would be fine.
Luckily, my wife rescued me a few minutes later so I could get back to work.
The Problem With Marketing “Echo Chambers”
Before the impromptu Christmas lullaby crisis, I’d been working on an A/B test for a client’s landing page—a simple form where reverse mortgage applicants could check their payout before speaking to a loan officer.
My client’s original page was… basic.
Just a single input box for their file number. No context, no persuasion—just a blank space, waiting.
But I’ve seen how lead magnet squeeze pages (the kind used for ebooks and free downloads) optimize conversions.
So, I borrowed from that world and built an alternate version with:
✅ A compelling headline
✅ A few spicy bullet points to reinforce the value
✅ A bit of copywriting magic to nudge them toward action
These are small, obvious changes once you see them…
But almost NOBODY actually does them.
Why?
Because of something I call Creative Cannibalization.
What Is Creative Cannibalization?
Creative Cannibalization is what happens when you sit in an echo chamber for too long.
You stop coming up with new ideas.
Your fresh concepts are just rehashed, reheated, and regurgitated versions of old ones.
Most businesses suffer from this.
Most marketers suffer from this.
And they don’t even realize it’s happening.
When you only look within your own industry for ideas, you get stuck.
- Financial brands copy other financial brands.
- Tech companies copy other tech companies.
- Ecommerce brands copy other ecommerce brands.
And before you know it?
Your “big breakthrough” is just someone else’s slightly tweaked leftovers.
Hard to escape? Yes.
Impossible? No.
You just need to start thinking with Boomerang Logic.
What Is Boomerang Logic?
Boomerang Logic is the process of pulling ideas from completely different industries and applying them to your own.
That’s how I pulled inspiration for that reverse mortgage landing page—not from other mortgage lenders, but from lead magnets used in info-marketing.
It’s why some of the best innovations in one field come from people outside that field.
➡️ Why Henry Ford looked at meatpacking plants to figure out assembly lines for cars.
➡️ Why Airbnb studied McDonald’s franchises to optimize their trust and verification process.
➡️ Why I used a Christmas song to calm a screaming baby.
Great marketers don’t think in straight lines.
They steal smart from other industries, rework the ideas, and profit.
In fact, you can be really smart and steal from my daily email list right now:
