“What’s so cool about that? All those people died,” said my wife in response to my 9-year-old son’s gleeful description of what he had seen.

He recovered quickly: “We like watching things get wrecked.”

I recently took my kid to an incredible museum exhibit on the destruction of Pompeii. In addition to nifty artifacts and décor preserved by volcanic ash, it featured a 4-D interactive film that showed a time-lapse scene of city buildings and Mt. Vesuvius. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but Pompeii was wiped out in about two.

Normal morning, “Beautiful.” Slight earthquake later, “Uh oh.” Huge cloud on the mountain in the afternoon, “Is that a fiery rain of volcanic rock???” And, finally, a pyroplastic flow that leveled the town.

I was transfixed. What compels me to stand close and watch as a perfectly lovely place gets smothered by ash? The same thing that makes you pay attention to a slow-moving train wreck.

None of us can look away from tension and conflict. It’s as old as storytelling. Even prehistoric cave paintings depict hunting and danger, not flower-gathering. Welcome to humanity.

You’re wondering, “Is he about to apply lessons from the tragedy of an ancient natural disaster to advertising an underwear brand today?” …Maybe.

In advertising, tension can capture attention, provoke thought, and drive consumer action. An ad is powerful if it mirrors the challenges consumers face.

It could be internal conflict of before/after transformations, tension between characters, or showing how a product helps overcome societal or environmental problems. Conflict can stir emotions, making the advertisement more memorable, building to resolution.

Problem, meet solution.

For tension and conflict to work, it should be relevant to both the product and the audience, and the focus should really be on the benefit provided by the brand. Keep it consistent with the brand’s values and enhance the brand narrative without distraction.

Even though a volcanic explosion and ill-fitting undies are vastly different, each can ruin your day. Both have a tension you’ll pay attention to, and at least one of these problems has a Chafe-proof® solution.

When executed thoughtfully, tension in advertising can transform a simple sales pitch into a compelling brand story. And when you raise the stakes high enough or make the problem relatable enough, no one can look away.