Pow! Right Between The Eyes! Andy Nulman's Blog About Surprise

What's In-Store for the Music Biz

A band that was always close to its fans got even closer when Linkin Park played a secret show inside New York's SoHo Apple Store last Thursday night (you can read all about it here).  They called it a "warm-up for their Madison Square Garden show," but the buzz generated by the band's 200-person boutique concert outweighed and overshadowed anything they did in the arena. Concerts may be big and bombastic, but it's the Surprise of a secret show that grabs the attention.

While some may say the Linkin boys may be just a little past their prime, you can't get any hotter a venue than an Apple store these days (they've become the primary gathering zone of the hip; the "New Starbucks" if you will). Which got me to thinking...

You've got two industries on shaky ground (the music biz and the retail sector), and both shaken by the same hand--the digital revolution.  Yet, like two negatives multiplied make a positive in algebra, it seems that pairing bands and stores may be a tonic from which both can benefit. 

The bands will bring in traffic.  Every show will be packed.  They can sell music, merch and seed fan bases. 

Individual stores or retail chains (whose backing would spawn more "tours" than one-offs) will not just jam their locales at off-hours, but associate with the all-important image-generator of modern music. (And who says it has to be modern?  There are a lot of old-school artists who can use--and generate--some intimate, in-store lovin').   

Working together, this concept can break new bands, introduce new products and multiply audiences.  It would breathe new life into stalwarts looking to renew, like The Gap and Starbucks (who can go from selling CDs to selling live shows).  It would give label-less talent a chance to play live, not just on MySpace.

This ain't exactly a new concept.  Record stores did this for years, but except for a scant few, they don't exist anymore (and they're not where kids get their music anyway). And the use of malls to launch teen faves (like Tiffany and Debbie Gibson) was a fad during the '80s.

But it is a new world.  And as we've said over and over at Surprise Central, everything new is old again.

Today Hot Topic, tomorrow CBGB's!

Vacation Rules...Again.

Vacation time is here again. (Well for me, at least.  YOU are still prowling the blogosphere, looking for ditties like this to read.)

And like I did last year, I have compiled two lists of posts designed to regale old FOPs (Friends of Pow!) and to give cherished newbies an idea of the philosophy, the headspace and the raison d'etre of this blog:

List #1 is what I'll call The 12 Posts of Christmas. What I did was pick out the one post each month over the past year that best exemplified the spirit that drives the theme of Surprise marketing.

List #2 is a simple collection of faves; rants, raves, theories and experiences of 2007 that were a blast to write and stand the test of time...even though they may stray off topic a bit.

So there we go.  And before I leave you for the season, I also make state the Vacation Pledge that "postings will be sporadic"...but I said the same thing over the summer and last year this time.

So until January 7--or more likely, until inspiration hits--thanks for being such an interesting, interactive and faithful audience, and for making my commitment to this blog a labor of love.

LIST #1: The 12 Posts

December        Infoverflow and SNAM
November        Here Today
October           The Worst Surprise is No Surprise
September       The Eel Effect
August              We NEVER Close!
July                  Reverse Shoplifting 
June                 Thirsty, But Non-Committal
May                  Theory Why
April                 The Day After
March               A Tale Of Two Ads...Part 2
February          The Why Behind The What
January            The Lubricant To Yes

 LIST #2: Rants, Raves & Faves 

Arrested by The Police
Taxing Cabs
Free Advice (Marketing's New Ps)
How To Sell Art (or Anything Else) Better
Tell Me What I'll Say
It's ALL User-Generated Content!
Designer Thievery

 

Pump Up Your Volume

Last week, I promised you a primer on how to stand out.  But before I give it to y'all, let me explain from whence it comes. 

Back in April, I was one of 100 bloggers worldwide asked by Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton (two of the People I Dig listed at left) to be part of a collaborative book project called The Age of Conversation.  We were given free reign to write what we wanted, as long as our "chapter" focused on communicating with others. 

Well, given the focus of my entire life, never mind just this here blog, I decided to hone in on what has brought me to this point--the ability to shout (without pissing too many people off).  If you dig the following, you'd be well-served by buying the book, as there are 99 more such heartfelt and headspilled pieces within it.

So, without any further ado, here's my 400-word opus.  Turn up the volume.  And repeat often.

-------------------------------------------

HOW TO SHOUT!

All our lives, we’ve been told to keep quiet. 

As babies, we’re told to “Hush,” to stop crying.

As kids, we’re told that we should be seen, and not heard.

Even as adults, the e-world’s rules of etiquette frown on EXCESSIVE USE OF CAPITALS lest it disturb all the other poor ones-and-zeroes that make up our emails.

Well, this “minifesto” explodes the notion that silence is golden.  In fact, to borrow the famous anti-aids slogan, to effectively converse in today’s all-pervasive multi-media environment, Silence = Death.

Imagine how ineffective Martin Luther King would be had he whispered “Shhhh…I have a dream.” Would art thieves continue to pursue Edvard Munsch’s “The Sigh”? And would Billy Idol have had as big a hit with the song “Rebel Murmur”?

For years, the art of shouting (yes, the ART) has endured a bad rap… probably because those who used it most are crass, aggressive boors.  It’s time to break that stigma. Just like paint can be used to create a masterpiece or a mess, when in the right hands, shouting is a deft, expressive tool.

Consider conversation to be shades of black, white and grey; shouting is the color. 

If conversation is made up of periods, commas and the occasional semicolon, shouting is the exclamation mark.

Like singing, great SHOUTS come from the gut, not the throat. They are emotional, not rational; inspired, not contrived.

Shouting is not about making yourself heard. It’s about making yourself interesting. And making yourself into someone people will want to converse with.

And shouting doesn’t necessarily mean pissing people off. It doesn’t necessarily mean speaking, either. Used properly, a raised eyebrow can be louder than a jackhammer. It’s all about context, and the courage to stand out from the norm.

Yup, it could still backfire. Think of Howard Dean’s guttural yelp during 2004’s Presidential race. There’s a fine line between raw emotion and madness. But who’d you rather have in the White House today—screamin’ Dean, or quiet, condescending Bush?

So shout, shout, let it all out. Don’t be afraid to live life loud. Puff up your chest when you walk into a room. Stand out, don’t fit in. Do it with your clothes, your accessories. A wallet (brown, boring) can hold credit cards, or (Paul Smith-striped) make a statement.

Let everything you have scream your name and establish your personal brand as one of animal magnetism.

ROARRRRRR!

Theory 15--The Eel Effect (Slippery, Electric & Wiggly)

I've been asked to speak to a class of graduating business students at my old school (sounds like a Steely Dan song, but I digress). 

This is a common occurrence at this time of year, but unlike most other times I've been asked, this one came with a special condition.

The condition was a simple one--given the rise of Airborne, this speech would have to provide special advice to budding entrepreneurs "who don't want to work for some 800-pound gorilla company"; in other words, a large behemoth that has 240,000 employees in 24,000 countries and tries to stomp all over the competition...and everybody else.

So I got to thinking: What's the antithesis of an 800-pound gorilla? What member of the collective zoology can be recruited to symbolize the traits and tenacity needed to start something from scratch, keep at it, and (well, I had to get the spirit of Pow! in there somehow) manage to Surprise a few people along the way?

Like half a Noah, I scraped the animal kingdom inside and out, from aardvarks to zebras and everywhere within, looking for the perfect fit.  And I was stumped...until last night when I had some takeout sushi before my workout. 

And there it was...laid out on a cot of rice, held in place by a ring of seaweed.

The eel.

What a revelation! Just think about it.  Here's a fish that looks like a giant worm, but acts more like a snake.  Despite their relatively dull appearance, these slippery guys are mean monkey-mofos; almost all eels are predators, and if hungry enough, will even eat their own family.  The electric eel variety are capable of generating powerful shocks, which they use for both hunting and self-defense. Ouch.

And although they lack pelvic fins and the associated skeletal structures common to their fish brethren, eels manage to rip through the water at speeds up to 30 km/hour. 

No ivory towers for these guys.  The CEO sharks may get their own week of glory on the Discovery Channel, but it's the eels who are the unsung streetfighters.

So let's compare the qualities common to both the entrepreneur and the eel:

--Deceptively dangerous
--Fast as hell
--Hungry
--Tough
--Hard to catch (despite the sushi...)

The most important factor though, and greatest similarity between eel and entrepreneur, is HOW they move. 

As mentioned before, the eel is a speedy little critter.  It knows where it wants to go, and gets there fast.

But NEVER in a straight line.

The wiggle of the eel is an important part of is physiology and its survival.  Same with an entrepreneur.  Having your eyes on the prize, but not being glued to a set roadmap and direction, is what separates the successes from the failures.

True entrepreneurs roll with the punches...and there are many.  Markets swing, tastes change and general shift just happens.  True entrepreneurs can change direction often and rapidly, without losing sight of where they're going. 

And how to get back there if they're knocked wildly off course. 

And how to find a new place to go if the original destination is blocked.

Just like the eels do it.

Obviously, I still have to add to the speech, but at least I have found a mascot for entrepreneurs everywhere. (One that shares a common initial to boot!)   

I'm no fool though.  I accept that on the corporate battlefield, an 800-pound gorilla can still stomp all over an eel.

Provided, of course, it can actually catch one...

Theory 5--The Lubricant To Yes

Why do I love Surprise marketing so much?

Because it’s the lubricant to “Yes.”

There’s nothing more that marketers want to hear than that word. You can yammer along about customer retention, building community, unaided recall, blah, blah, effin’-blah all you want, but no other term really matters.

It’s the word with the most buzz—Yes.

But when it comes to getting you there, so many marketers do it so damn wrong. They drive you crazy, flash strobes at you, get in your face and spew spittle on you as they talk.  They pounce on you as you enter the store, and spam you for eternity once you leave.

In an article in The Economist late last year, Joe Staton, the head of JWT's Knowledge Center, summed it up best when he said:

“Selling people things has become more difficult than it has ever been.”

And for good reason.  The problem is simple, and deep-rooted:

People don’t want to be sold.

When I was at Just For Laughs, I would be deluged with hundreds of phone calls, emails, letters and packages every week by well-meaning-but-insanely-overbearing agents and managers, all trying to push their clients with bribes, threats, promises and oodles of dubious achievements like: “He’s the second hamburger in that hot new Wendy’s commercial!”

And I would tell them the same thing.

Over and over again:

Don’t try to sell me;
just make it easy
for me to buy.

Let me discover your product, service or offer.

Don’t make me feel that somehow, it was forced on me.

Don’t, not for a second, make me feel that the decision was yours, not mine.

Seth Godin (yes, here I go again) has laid down a great post about four levels of marketing effort, the last being the Zen-like approach of No (Apparent) Effort. It’s almost an "anti-marketing," one which sells you by not selling.

Such is the raison d’etre of Surprise: Delight first…they’ll buy later.

As I said at the start...

Surprise is the
lubricant to “Yes.”

That’s the ultimate marketing destination.  The place we all wanna get to.

So stop pushing. Instead, make it easy for me to pull.

 

Vacation Rules

If the Gods loosen their grip on Denver and allow the airport to open more than two runways, then I should be off on my way for a few days of snowboarding in Vail as you read this. That said, there are two rules about this blog while yours truly is on vacation.

1. Posts will be sporadic
2. Posts will be less-than-sexy due to primary posting by Blackberry

However, out-of-sight doesn't necessarily mean out-of-mind.  For my more recent FOPs (Friends-of-Pow!), I have put together two compilations; a "What It's All About" and a "My Five Faves" collection.  The former should give you a good idea of this blog's philosophy and raison d'etre (dontcha just love it when I switch lingos?), while the latter should give you some insight into the headspace of its author.

What It's All About
Welcome Back(wards)
Theory 2--Intimate Goes Big
Watercooler IP
New vs. Nu?
Theory 1--Everyone's a Kid in Disneyland

My Five Faves
Hot Wet...
The Highlight Reel of Life
You Will Read This Post
Down Under (Again, But Different)
...And Now, A Response

Enjoy both lists, feel free to explore more if you wanna, and if we don't catch up over the Holiday, let's make a date to regroup on January 5th, when I put the gloves back on and start whacking you where the nose meets the eyebrows.

The Highlight Reel of Life

In addition to its role as an idea-aggregator and business tool, this blog is beginning to spark thoughts of a multi-media project (book, DVD, audio recording…let’s see where it goes). Because of that, I spend some time re-reading it to tie together some of the ideas I randomly spew forth within.

Friday’s post about Costco got me thinking about the earlier post about Surprise afterlife, and while watching an ingenious TV show during my cardio workout this morning, they all merged into an epiphany.

To explain, the TV show is called “30 Moments/30 Minutes.” Essentially it’s 30 great moments from the world of sports, categorized and broken down into three sets of 10, and played out over a half-hour. This morning’s episode showed 10 “Plays of the Week,” 10 eye-popping hockey saves and 10 messed-up soccer goals from international archives over the past 20 years or so. All the fat has been trimmed away to leave viewers with the uttermost high of highlights. It’s simple, but superb, television.

So, the connection? I realized that more than merely a collection of long-living stories, great Surprises provide us with what I call “The Highlight Reel of Life” (well, that’s what I call it now, after hours of trying to come up with a suitable tag).

Think about it. Think back to the great Surprise moments in your life, the highlights you STILL talk about. Not just the bargains or exquisite service, but the unexpected visit from a friend, the Surprise birthday party, the time your spouse’s simple haircut became a high-flying Afro perm, the $100 bill you found in the street…

I could go on and on, but the point here is that hopefully, so can you.

I can’t help but thinking how great it would be to actually bring  The Highlight Reel of Life to a physical reality! Never mind a photo album; imagine a DVD or disc drive filled with the great Surprise moments in your life, captured real-time in chronological order. According to (yet another) fascinating article in this month’s Fast Company, the cover story about Microsoft’s Gordon Bell and his digitally-never-forget-anything “My Life Bits” project, this may not be as far-fetched, far-out or far-off as you think.

Until then, The Highlight Reel of Life can live virtually, stored in your memory banks. Keep collecting!

How Logo Can I Go?

I always believed in visual branding.  I remember as a 10-year-old, trying to come up with a sweeping Hollywoodesque signature to separate me from those classmates who just wrote out their names in shaky cursive (imagine how I beamed with pride when Olga Kalyniak, a teller at the TD Bank in St. Laurent, explaimed "Well, will you look at that!" when I signed the signature card to my junior account).  Years later, when Garner Bornstein and I came up were bouncing around logo concepts for Airborne Entertainment, one of my main criteria was: "Would a kid want to wear it on a t-shirt?"

That said, I recently overhauled the look of this blog, and had the very talented Scott Brooks adapt an original idea of mine into the logo that not only adorns this blog, but hopefully will serve to visually define the word "Surprise."

Let's dissect it, shall we?

In the center is your standard exclamation point, vise-gripped by two gaping circles.  While they give off strong vibes of staring down the barrel of a shotgun (quite the fitting metaphor for "Pow! Right Between The Eyes," wouldn't you say?), they are actually meant to symbolize the eyes themselves.

Put together, the circles and punctuation mark form the semblance of a face, wide-eyed and open-mouthed...the epitome of what we look like when we're surprised.

Tom Peters seems to have first dibs on the exclamation mark as a symbol, and has used to to connote "Wow!"  I've taken it a bit further, if I must say so rather immodestly.  As I explained in my second-ever post, Surprise trumps Wow.

And, if I may be so bold in describing my logo, the addition of the two circles takes the common exclamation mark...and gives it the balls it needs to truly Surprise.

Pow!  Right Between The...well, you know where.

The Ghost Of Surprises Past

Here's a Surprise paradox.

On one hand, Surprise is a journey.  Once you get there, you have to start all over again.  Its original effect dies.

On the other hand, once a Surprise is finished for you, it can still bring you an almost equal pleasure by turning someone else onto it .  That's why all great Surprises benefit from a virtuous circle of word-of-mouth marketing; in Seth Godin parlance, they give rise to armies of sneezers.  Just think about the last time something really Powed You Right Between The Eyes.  How quickly did you tell somebody? How many people did you tell? 

This viral element is crucial for the growth of any Surprise.  Like a ghost, the spirit lives on long after the original has ceased to be.

New vs. Nu?

There used to be an old expression: "Everything old is new again."  It works the other way 'round in creating Surprise,  because

"Everything new is old again."

It useta-be that an innovative company would enjoy a little bit of breathing room after introing a new product.  No more.  These days, product life cycles are increasingly short.  New products and ideas go from hot and hip to ho-hum in record time (think PT Cruiser or Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.  I could go on for hours).  Rabid competition leads to rapid indifference.   New becomes nu? (a great Yiddish term that roughly translates to "So, already?") real fast. 

That's why more than just being creative once, true Surprise requires "shocking the system."  Again.  And again.  And again and...

Any one Surprise doesn't last; the concept must exist as a continuum for it to pay dividends.

Here's a perfect example of what the hell I'm talking about:

Many moons ago, 1974 to be exact, singer/songwriter Jim Stafford had a huge hit with the novelty song My Girl Bill. "Holy jumpin' jeez," was the initial reaction, "this guy's singing about his girlfriend, who's name is Bill!" (Remember, this was the early '70s, when this was somewhat shocking...) 

The end of the song pays off the lame-o joke.  He wasn't singing about "My Girl Bill," he was singing about "My Girl, Bill" (note the placement of the comma; he was talking to his buddy Bill about his girl).  I know, I know...you're just about splitting your sides right about now.  Pull yourself together for the point of all this:

• The first time you heard My Girl Bill on the radio, you were taken aback. 
• The second time, you watched to see if anyone you were with didn't know the twist, and waited to enjoy their reaction. 
• The third time, you wanted to shoot the radio. 
• The fourth time, you wanted to shoot Stafford. 
• The fifth time, you wanted to shoot yourself. 

Like anything majestic, rare and delicious, Surprise is a perishable good.  A rapidly perishable one at that. 

An old Surprise is like a rotten peach.  At one time it was gorgeous, fresh, tasty and  good. 

Now, it's just yuck.

(And by the way, you can still catch Jim Stafford's act in Branson, Missouri. Tell him I sent ya!)

Def-in-ishin'

I guess great cliche # 2 is to lay down a dictionary definition of the term "Surprise" to put in into context.  Most dictionary definitions are boring, so I've come up with my own to serve the purposes of the business of Surprise:

SURPRISE: 
The constant expansion of the boundaries of extreme

Here's the explanation.  People remember extremes, they forget the standard.  Yet the most important word in my Dic's def is constant, not extreme.  The problem with extremes--and perhaps its saving grace as per my hypothesis--is that extremes turn into standards fast.

Really effin' fast!

First time around, it's a surprise.  Second time on, it becomes accepted.  Expected.  A staple.

The moral of the story?  The only way to ensure surprise is the constant search for a new extreme.

Tough?  You betcha.

But consider the alternative.

Title Origin Revealed!

Oh, by the way, the title of this blog comes from a lyric within an obscure Joe Walsh tune called "Life Of Illusion." It goes:

Pow, right between the eyes
Oh, how nature loves her little surprises

If you don't know Joe, he's one of rock 'n' roll's all-time great iconoclasts/flakes.  While he's been a member of The Eagles for years, his early work solo and with The James Gang is what makes him so much fun.  He deserves a look and listen at www.joewalsh.com.  Thanks for the inspiration, Joe!

 

Everyone's a Critic

Jesus Christ!  Two hours after my first post and I already have to defend my stance!

One of my Airborne Entertainment colleagues is guiding me through TypePad, and while checking up to ensure that I didn't completely screw up the Internet while posting he said in passing: "Uh, isn't 'Surprise' is just another name for 'Wow'?  And Tom Peters kinda owns that word..."

Well, it ain't.  There's a big difference between the two. To put it mathematically:

Surprise > Wow

Surprise is the next level of Wow; a form of differentiation like no other.  In fact, my obsession with Surprise began last year on a trip to Japan, where I learned the difference between atarimae hinshitsu (quality that is expected) and mirokuteki hinshitsu (quality that fascinates), terms I first gleaned from Alex Wipperfurth's excellent Brand Hijack book.

I'll get to the Japanese anecdotes in a later post, but to counter my colleague, here's the diff between the two:

Wow = Exceeded expactations  Surprise = Shock!
Wow = Incremental                    Surprise = Quantum Leap
Wow = A great ballgame            Surprise = A major upset
Wow = A new haircut                 Surprise = A new hair color

Surprise is one of the seven basic human expressions (anger, contempt, disgust, fear, happiness and sadness being the six others).  Yet it's potential for business remains untapped.

Until now.

Wow!

Welcome Back(wards)

Hello and thanks for coming.  Chances are that if you're reading this, you are backtracking to see how this whole thing got started, 'cuz during the first couple months of posting, I think NASA's Mars Rover saw more traffic than I did. 

But the barren wasteland of this space back then allowed me to gather my thoughts, post prolifically and build my case to convince you of my premise, the raison d'etre of this blog. 

So drumroll, please...

The element of surprise is the most important aspect of contemporary marketing.

That's the premise.  Shocked?  Don't be.  Or rather, I'm happy that you are. Just proves my point.  Surprise is that "Pow! Right Between The Eyes!" moment that jumpstarts a modern marketing relationship. 

And it's more important than ever in our world of tough, jaded consumers; consumers who have access to more information and opinions than any society in history.  They know it all, have seen it all, and have commented on much of it.  When it comes to price, quality, service, the experience, they know what they want.  They want it all.

The way I see it, consumers won't accept trade-offs.  They expect everything to be right.  Every time.  And there's only one way to please people who expect it all:

Give 'em what they DON'T expect!

You know, in my many diatribes at conferences and at Airborne Entertainment's famed Monday Morning Meetings, I have always shouted that consumers don't know what they want.

Well, I lied.

They know what they want. 

They WANT to be led.
They WANT us to lead them.
They WANT to follow.
And despite the sucky Holiday Inn slogan ("The Best Surprise is No Surprise"), they WANT to be surprised.

That's what I hope to convince you of throughout the lifeline of this blog.  Yeah this may evolve into a book or morph into another one of my speech topics, but for now, I hope to keep surprising you with theories, anecdotes and examples. 

And I hope to hear from you.

So go ahead...

Surprise me.