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

Diamond Shreddies Sparkle

This one's been around for a bit, but like fine wine, great art and me, it gets better with age.   More than that, it's a perfect example of the Surprise Marketing technique I call "Wear Virgin Contact Lenses" (or, put another way, try to see something old as if it were your first time).

Post's venerable Shreddies cereal has been "reintroduced" as Diamond Shreddies.  The illustration below says it all:

Simple.  Hysterical.  Effective. Great Pow!

The company is exploiting this to the max, including a promotion where you can win actual sparklers.  Check out its sublime website, complete with recipes and some delightfully funny REAL focus group sessions (well, the people are real; the moderator is a sharp imrov comedian) where perplexed interviewees reflect on the exciting innovation of a "whole new level of geometric superiority."

Short and Snappy

You don't have to be a multiconglomerate, a member of the Fortune 500 or running for elected office to benefit from a snappy slogan or corporate catchphrase.

Case in point was a veteran shoeshiner I had the pleasure of doing business with recently in Las Vegas.  When he was done reviving my worn boots into sparkledom, I asked him how much I owed him, and in a sing-song rhythm worthy of the ad industry's top jingle-writers, he said:

"The shine is worth eight...
any more would be great! "

In this era of uber-branding--both corporately and personally--is there any reason NOT to have some sort of short sobriquet to be remembered by?  Costs nothing...and could be worth a fortune.

P.S. Yup.  Of course I have one.  For years, my own personal slogan has been:

"The Somewhat Smarter Smart-Ass."

Chocolate Chip Ambassadors

And speaking about the Doubletree (see yesterday's post), while they didn't ask, I couldn't help but think of some ways to bring the all-important element of Surprise to their tried-and-true but reaching its "best-by" date cookie offering.

The company, which is rather unexceptional most other ways (except for the Toronto flight screens, again as per yesterday's post), has got a ton of branding mileage out of these check-in cookies, but what was once Pow! has now fallen into the doldrums of expectation. 

And as all smart FOPs know, expectation is the enemy of Surprise, Surprise works best as a continuum, and like week-old cookies, Surprise goes stale when left unrefreshed.  That's Pow! 101.

These cookies are Doubletree's best ambassadors (name me one thing of equal renown that the Hyatt or Hilton or Wyndam chains are noted for), but the opinion here at Surprise Central is that they need to be taken up a notch in their exploitation.  So, here are a couple of things Doubletree may wanna try:

1) We all love chocolate chip, but it's a standard a flavor as cookies get.  Why not mix up the tastes a bit with oatmeal, peanut butter crunch, white macadamian nut chunk, anything!...either as a "Flavor of the Week/Month" or as a completely random choice?

2) Make the cookies do "double duty" as literal fortune cookies.  Have a promotion where random cookie bags are stuffed with a lil' sumptin' extra, like certificates for free rooms, free meals, free drinks or a full dozen of said cookies to send to a friend as a gift. 

3) So you get cookies at check-in.  What can be done to send me off with an equally warm feeling at check-out?

Go get 'em guys.  These are yours for the taking.  And all I ask in return is a double dose next time I Doubletree.
 

When Snacks Attack

It ain't easy being a snack food these days.  One one hand, the competition for shelf space is fierce, and on the other, you're being beseeched by health and fitness advocates and the government about how you're responsible for everything from rampant obesity to the downfall of America.

So I gotta give a lotta kudos to these two who are doing their damndest to cut through the clutter and the muttering.

On the "We Ain't That Bad" side there's Lesser Evil, who make "All Natural Kettle Corn and Krinkle Sticks" with no preservatives, trans fat, high-fructose corn syrup or anything else bad. 

Usually, these are code words for "tastes like hell," but this ain't health food the Tuckahoe, New York company is touting...just "better" than the usual bag of oily chips or popcorn.  And the retro packaging takes you back to a simpler time where things were healthier...or at least you didn't know how bad they were for you.

Also all-natural, the people at Robert's American Gourmet handle things a little differently.  These guys are the Jones Soda of snack foods, with flavors and gimmicks that grab attention...and cash (the company enjoyed a 38% dollar growth last year). 

Owner Robert Erlich throws a lot of SKUs up against the wall. Some--like Pirate's Booty and Moon Chips--stick; others--like the $50 bag of Caviar Potato Flyers, Bubble Tea Popcorn and St. John's Wort Tortilla Chips--don't, and for good reason. 

But with $50 million in sales, Robert's is flying and will keep trying (up next: 50-grain Stem Cell Chips. Yum!)., and will even let folks like us get involved and suggest his next snack hit.  Or miss.

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!

Getting Off

As you read this, I am prepping for my speech at the RAC in Chicago, so retail has been on the mind for the past few days. 

In doing some last-minute research l, just before bed, I stumbled upon this obvious common-sense gem in Brandweek about shopping psychology:

"Simply put, Americans
either like to flaunt
their thrift or wealth."

Had to laugh, because at dinner last night, I was wearing my new Ralph Lauren RRL jacket, which I had just picked up in Florida.

What makes the jacket special is not just the intricate, obtuse patchworking, but the price; it had originally listed at $3000, was marked down to $600, and I picked it up for 75% off that (that's $150 for those of you mathematically-challenged).

And what's funniest about this is that the deal was SO great, I still haven't removed the price tag from inside the jacket.  It's become part of the story I tell each time someone comments on it.  Most times, I even show it.  Generates Pow! every time, too.

Crazy, but true.

Which gets me to thinking...perhaps retailers can think of a way to "reverse-psychologize" the flaunting system.  On the wealth side, we will show off our designer names and logos loudly, but on the thrift side, the killer bargains remain stealthily anonymous (unless you're a widemouth like yours truly).

Is "75%-off" the new Gucci?

The BEST Blog Post of All-Time! (Probably)

There are words I think oughta be outlawed in marketing. Words like:

Best.  Greatest.  Number One.  Finest.

In essence, I'm rallying against any excessive hyperbolic term that, in these enlightened times, actually works AGAINST the product/service/company/person being marketed.

To drive home this point, I present this photograph of the Mui Garden Restaurant in Vancouver, taken by Francisco Ortiz (who passed away suddenly and way too young earlier this month):

The statement "Our Curry is the Best in The World" would be met with a "yeah right," ridiculed and ultimately ignored (particularly in Vancouver, not exactly renowned as the universal focal point of Indian cuisine).  But the addition of the off-balancing adverb "probably" makes what would be conceived as forgettable stupidity into a conversation-starter...and most "probably" a lure through the doors.

A little truth goes a long, long way (n'est-ce pas, Gary King?).  So does some humility.  And a sense of humor.  That's what makes this work.  These days, cynicism and a shrewd marketplace has rendered over-hype counterproductive.  That's why one of 2007's top bestsellers was a slim volume simply entitled "On Bullshit" (from Princeton University Press, no less!).  We won't get fooled again.

All this reminds me of the following tell-tale cartoon from a MAD Magazine piece on Pizza.  While published a half-century ago (!!), it shows the power of truth and humility.  And shows that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.

The Second Time Around

By now, all FOPs know--ad nauseum, I might add--that the secret of Surprise is not doing it once, but doing it on a continual basis.  Many the blog post has been written here exalting that dictum...which brings us back to Kelly Liken's restaurant in Vail (yes, one final Vail post, folks).

About a year ago, I ranted and raved over the effect of the lil' bag of goodies she doles out after each meal (little things mean a lot...another oft-repeated theme at Surprise Central, like here, here and here), which is why I chose her place over countless other tony spots in that high-falutent town to celebrate my wife's birthday with our family a couple of weeks ago. 

But in addition to once again wanting to sample Kelly's adventurous cuisine, I wanted to see if she could once again pull off some Pow! now that I've "been there, done that" with the goody-bag.

Well to her credit, she pulled it off.  Magnificently and modestly.  Check out what we saw when we opened the night's menu:

Now I didn't ask for this.  All I did was mention that we'd be celebrating a birthday.  It was the fast thinking of Kelly and/or someone on her staff (it was so subtle I don't remember) who asked for my wife's name, and re-printed four menu sheets. 

Think about this for a second.  Probably cost less than five bucks.  Yet the warm vibes it brought was the reason we opted for the more expensive bottle of wine (WAY more) and the extra dessert; an admirable return on investment, I must say.

But frankly, that pales to the payback of us talking about the gesture throughout our stay...amnd way past it, as you see.

How many times do you volunteer that type of innocuously-personal information--or ANY type of usable information--when making a restaurant reservation? 

And what usually happens to it?  In one ear, and out the other.

Yet by listening, and with some simple, inexpensive action, restaurants everywhere can Surprise their their patrons and make them feel more like family than like "customers."  And reap the ensuing benefits.

Well done, Kelly.  But you know what we're all thinking right about now, dontcha?

What are you gonna do NEXT year?

The Long Fuse (of the Time Bomb)

Brian Grazer.  Co-founder of Imagine Entertainment with Ron Howard.  Brilliant film and TV producer, but never figured him for a Surprise marketer.

However, a recent piece in the New York Times shows that he's a sneaky little bugger, and a master at the game.  To wit:

LOS ANGELES (NYT)— Brian Grazer, one of the most successful producers in Hollywood, would seem to be a memorable guest, with his energetic manner and elaborately spiked hair. But to make sure he is not forgotten, he will often leave behind a small photo of himself in an inexpensive heart-shaped frame after attending a dinner or party, hiding it among his host’s family photographs.

Over the years, he has left these photos at the homes of movie executives, socialites and even one in Fidel Castro's military compound. “When I first started doing it, some people got really angry,” Mr. Grazer recalled. “That made me continue doing it. I get to see how long it takes for them to find it and whether they think it’s funny. It’s interesting to see what they’ll do with it.”

At Surprise Central, we call this "Time-Bombing," where you plant a marketing seed that explodes and spreads its Pow! factor at a later date. (Take that, Chris Anderson!  You got the Long Tail, we've got The Long Fuse!)  I've pulled this off a number of times, but perhaps the best Time Bomb campaign I've seen was instigated by my biz partner Garner Bornstein when we were running a website called TheFunniest.com (the precursor to Airborne Entertainment). 

A notorious practical joker, Garner printed golf balls, emblazoned with our company's notorious Fupp Duck mascot, our phone number, and the message "Generous Reward If Found."  Well, we gave these out to every client and at every trade show, and played with them (and in my case, very poorly) at every charity tournament. 

This was nine years ago, and we still get calls from people who find them in some rough or drag them out of some swamp.  The Surprises are numerous, particularly when they learn that there is no real reward other than the joke of finding 'em.

TheFunniest may be long gone, but its spirit lives on!  I think I'll send a dozen over to Brian Grazer...

Naked Came The Stranger

Big kudos to the folks at Bear Naked Granola folks for puttin' together the best and most Surprising Hallowe'en promotion EVAH!

While the big boys stocked supermarket end-caps with stacks of junk food, Bear Naked recruited wigged-and-costumed college student street teams across the country, reverse-engineered the concept of Trick-or-Treating and went door-to-door to GIVE AWAY hundreds of thousands of granola samples.

Door-to-door marketing used to be a familiar, homespun North American staple (remember "Avon calling!" and the Fuller Brush man?), but with modern innovations like home invasions, they have kinda fallen out of favor. 

Which makes Bear Naked's reverso initiative even more brilliant.

The company's marketing director, Ryan Therriault, admitted that going door-to-door "is looked down upon," but said that "Hallowe'en was the one day of the year that people would actually be expecting someone to show up at their door," so...

This is supreme Surprise marketing; as good as it gets.

Coming up next--Bear Naked's Christmas promotion, where Santa takes presents and slides UP the chimney.  (And then fights a lawsuit from The Grinch.)

Here Today

Look folks, I'm no mega-star, but from time-to-time, I get invited to some pretty high-falutin' events.

Two such gatherings took place over the past month; one the booklaunch of former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's memoirs, the other an A-list black-tie affair to launch McGill University's ambitious $750 million capital campaign. 

And at both events, despite my natty dress and best behavior, despite my achievements with Airborne and Just For Laughs,  I was met with this following reaction (from a power lawyer at the former and from the illustrious wife of a higher-up at the latter): a twist of the nose, an adjusting of eyeglasses, followed by the somewhat incredulous words

"What are YOU doing here?"

First of all, whatever happened to a simple "So nice to see you!" followed by a smile ?   

But I digress...

The important lesson here is not one of social grace, but of Surprise.  People obviously see me more at home in torn jeans at a White Stripes concert than in a tux at a chi-chi fundraiser (in fact, some people still have trouble believing I own a tie).  No prob; if that indeed is my Personal Brand, so be it.

But being underestimated is the friend of Surprise; it sets the bar low, and allows one to make an even greater impact once he or she stands out.

In fact, I'd MUCH rather be met with a "What are you doing here?" than a yawning "Oh, you again..."

Great Surprise stories--in sports, business, anywhere there is adversity and the chance of triumph against the odds--are written by Underdogs...not by Overcats.

And being underestimated is the Underdog's jet fuel.

So grow your skin thick, and drink up!

The world is waiting for you to show them exactly what you are doing here.

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!

The Clint Eastwood Effect

Sometimes, the easiest way to conjure up some Surprise in marketing is by adhering to a lil' sumptin' I call The Clint Eastwood Effect. 

It's a seven-word credo that's incredibly powerful, but rarely administered.  To wit:

Use few words.
Live up to them.

There we go.  A la the screen legend, squint your eyes, follow the advice, and you'll be far ahead of the pack.

A fine theory, yes, but here's how it works in "da real world."

As FOPs know well, I am a frequent traveler, and last weekend, I bought my THIRD Briggs and Riley bag.  I have their "Wheeled Wardobe," their expandable carry-on, and now, their most incredible two-suiter classic garment bag.  Aside from the workmanship and the company's true understanding of the traveler, what keeps me coming back to Briggs and Riley is its 29-word, no-nonsense warranty, reproduced here in its entirety:

"If your Briggs & Riley bag
is ever broken or damaged,
even if it was caused by an airline,
we will repair it free of charge.
Simple as that!"

And after eight years of exclusively buying B&R travel gear, I've never had to enter the above comfort zone...

Until now.

Yup, while packing for a journey, the retractable handle of my Wheeled Wardrobe pulled right out.  This is the oldest of my B&R collection...and time to see if the company can pull off the second half of the Clint Eastwood equation.

I called the 1-800 repair number on the website, reached a HUMAN BEING within 30 seconds, who told me of a local repair center, literally five minutes from my office.  She didn't ask how it broke, who's fault it was, nor did she list some additional conditions or changes that may have been made to the bag's warranty in the near-decade I've had it. 

All I have to do, she said, is drop the bag off, and as promised, it would be repaired for free.

So, off I go tomorrow to the repair center.

So far, so good?  No, so far, so GREAT.

Let's see how they pull off the finale.

Go ahead, Briggs & Riley...Make My Day.

Feels Like The First Time

As FOPs know oh-too-well, I go to the gym regularly and often.

It's become second nature; in fact, if I had better insurance and cared less about my fellow man, I could probably do my entire two-hour cardio and weight-training blindfolded.

Yet, I keep my eyes open and earlier this week, I watched with great interest as two newbies took to an exercise program for their very first time.

Now there are few things in life more intimidating than undertaking your first workout, and it showed with this pair.  The oblivious grunters and sweaters surrounding them could've been from another planet given their unbridled indifference.   The machines, barbells and dumbells, so familiar to me, were looked upon as obtuse scrap metal, or worse yet, devices of torture.

It was amazing to watch, and made me think back to how tough it was the first time I entered a gym, thinking, among many other things, "Oh jeez, I'm never gonna look like that!"

The Pow! point here is this--to the newbies, the gym offered up a world of Surprise.  The feelings, the motions, the equipment, the people, the politics...all new, and never before experienced.   It'll all change soon, and  become part of that same ol' dull routine.  But for this magic moment, albeit a scary one, everything is unknown.

So the next time you're called upon to create Surprise, don't see the world through your eyes.  Put on a pair of virgin contact lenses and imagine seeing things the way someone would for the first time.

Your stale is someone else's fresh.

Helio's Real Fine Print

In the song "Step Right Up," Tom Waits crackles the words: "You got it, buddy--the large print giveth, and the small print taketh away."

Well, in a two page ad in the latest Business 2.0 for wireless carrier Helio and its dual-slider Ocean device (see it below and note: I did NOT call it a "phone"), the small print actually giveth.

Although printed in near-invisible, four-point, wispy gray type, Helio's small print giveth a lot of entertainment, it giveth a few smiles, and most importantly, it giveth a lot of insight into the company's image and spirit.

I've taken out a line about AOL, but here it is, otherwise verbatim, from the ad:

Available Spring 2007.
Don't blame us for third-party content or services.
Our super-advanced #G service is available in select locations in the red states, the blue states and even the green states.
Service is subject to Helio's Membership Terms. 
Some restrictions apply, but not too many.
See your Helio representative for the few that do.
Helio, the Helio logo, Ocean and "Don't Call It a Phone" are trademarks of Helio LLC. 
For more information, on Helio, visit www.helio.com.
And congrats, you're the only person who's made it this far.

Cheeky, revealing, and actually a whole lot more fun than most wireless carriers' actual in-ad copy.  We do a lot of work with Helio at Airborne, and now, I'm even happier we do.

So since they're a client, I hope Helio won't mind some free advice, Surprise Central-style:

Guys, make this special "small print" part of your advertising DNA. 

In classic Pow! formula, you have Surprised us once.  Now, we're gonna look for your fine print.  If it doesn't change, we'll be sadly disappointed.

BUT if you do shake it up, we're gonna keep looking.  Perhaps we'll even make it a point to seek out your ads, wondering what you'll do next. 

So what can you do next?  Tell us some stories.  Give us some coded messages to decipher.  Print the lyrics to Sky Dayton's favorite song.  Anything! 

But give us a reason to come back. And read your ads.  And become "members" (not subscribers) of your service.  And buy your...advanced communication devices.

Your "Fine Print" can become your "Find Print." 

Make sure we keep looking.

The Fourth Dimension

The ultimate in Surprise marketing defies quantum physics (and pulls a Rod Serling )by bursting into a twilight zone I call "The Fourth Dimension," where people actually interact with your message. You know your ads are profoundly infiltrating consumer pores when people are buying products based on them (a la Staples' "Easy Button" and the Suburban Auto Group's Trunk Monkey) or, just as good, taking the time to take pictures of, and pose next to, them. 

Great example of the latter is this from Cingular in New York's Times Square, the mecca of Pow! advertising for over a century.  Check out the people with cameras.  They sure ain't shooting the statue of George M. Cohan... (Big shout out to Airborne colleague Parisa Foster for sending this one along.)

Magnificent impact and a tourist attraction.  What's more, it gets the message across in an ultra-effective and most startling manner.  (Hope that in its new incarnation as AT&T (again!), the Cingular folks can continue to draw eyeballs...and eardrums.)

Great lesson, as well, in How To create Surprise.  In the proverbial nutshell...simply expand beyond the proverbial nutshell.  You've seen this work when newspaper ads explode outside their columns into the surrounding text, when magazine ads pop up or are appended with a tangible extra (a la the free full-episode DVD that AMC gave away to promote the show HU$TLE in this week's Brandweek).  People expect a billboard to be some sort of rectangle; by expanding its shape and physicality to street level, the Cingular billboard above increases its effectiveness exponentially.

Doesn't just work with ads though.  Think of the boundaries people tend to put on your personality or capacity...then step outside them and do the type of thing that will shock their systems, and keep 'em talking for years.

The Fourth Dimension is where one goes to make a difference.  Enjoy the trip!

The Formula

This from Linda Tischler's article on Northwestern U's Essentials of Industrial Design class in Fast Company.  In it, Linda profiles design guru Mark Dziersk, who teaches his students about the innovation process behind great products.

His parting words to his class as they pick up an assignment can be considered the mantra for Pow!, the formula for great Surprise.  So simple, but so true, and worth repeating ad nausem:

"Remember:
Creativity plus risk
gets you the grade"

And not just in class.  In business.  In life.  Everywhere.

 

So Funny I Forgot To Laugh

My friends--my first "second family," really--at Just For Laughs are about to announce the lineup for the event's 25th Anniversary in a few days, and one night last week I caught up with a few of my now L.A-based Festival colleagues and alumni for dinner.

Conversation was wild and varied, and one of the questions posed to yours truly was "So, why exactly did you leave?" (Historical note: I split JFL in 1999 after 15 years in various positions, ending up as the event's English and French Language CEO.)

While the answer is multi-faceted (and never regretted considering the fun and success I've had with Airborne),the deep-rooted, profound sentiment was that my life had become predictable.  My calendar was a Groundhog Day-like loop, but worse yet, I was getting all the jokes before they were even told. I knew the end was near when, at an L.A. Comedy Club with manager and pal Howard Lapides, I spent more time looking at the people in the room than at the acts on stage.

Looking back, it's amazing how similar the art of creating Surprise is to the art of creating humor.  I used to teach comedy writing at Concordia University, and at the root of every joke--EVERY joke--is what I used to call the "Fork In The Road" theory.  It's a simple tale of setting up the expected but delivering the unexpected, and it goes like this:

1. Every joke starts off as a journey.
2. You walk along a path, and get to the fork in the road.
3. You expect the joke to take a right turn.
4. Instead, it veers to the left.
5. Therein lies the humor.

Working in comedy started out as fun, but in the end, the process of creating humor became so routine that not only could I telegraph every punchline a mile away, but I had heard so many jokes that my response to them--no matter how brilliant--was not a belly laugh, a guffaw or even a chuckle.  It was a two-word reflective compliment: "That's funny."

The moral of the story is that, as I've said so often here, Surprise is not a one-time shock; it's a constant flow.  After a while, no matter how much Pow! in your Surprises, the tines on the fork-in-the-road meld into one.

And that's when, instead of offering your customers/your audience a right or left turn, you dig out the ground beneath their feet and leave them breathless as they fall down a hole they wouldn't have expected in their wildest dreams.

The Day After

So...a bunch of email today asking why no April Fool's Day stunt /post.

"Seems natural, especially considering the subject matter of your blog," read one.

And that's just the point.  People were EXPECTING it. 

Where's the Surprise?

Really, with guards up and radar on high, other than grade school kids and the truly gullible, who REALLY gets fooled on April 1st anymore?

Not FOPs.  You're all too smart for that... 

Here's What I Nose

There’s been a lot of hype these days about the power of smell as a marketing tool.  Hotels are beating each other up over respective “signature smells.”  The C-Store gas station chain in California plans to push out the fragrance of coffee at its pumps to promote sales of java.  Clear Channel is experimenting with scented billboards.  And this Starbucks story just in from the New York Times.  Worthy ventures or merely exhaust fumes?

Methinks the former.  Here's why.

Last week, trolling the vast conference floor at CTIA, I was smacked in the face by the aroma of fresh cookies.  Immediately, I abandoned my set destination and set off to find the source. I wandered around inconspicuously...or so I thought, until I was stopped by another one of my badge-wearing brethren.   He looked at me, pointed down aisle #4200 and said:

"It's over there." 

I wasn't the only one either. A conga line of guys were heading in the direction of the smell, lured like Hansel and Gretel to the gingerbread house.  And all this at a Wireless Tech conference. 

A little embarrassed, and not really needing the cookie caloric-wise, I backed off.  But the moment was indeed one of Pow! If the presence of wafting fumes can make grown men stray far off-course, you know you're dealing with something relatively potent (at least we following something other than our crotches). 

The big win with fragrances is that they don't play on our olfactory sense as much as they do our imagination.  This is a head game, not a nose game, as the things we smell conjure up idyllic memories of things past or Utopian visions of what could be.  The CTIA cookies were not as much about hunger as they were about comfort.

And with the industry of artificial fragrances expanding like a, well, a bad smell (check out the Demeter Fragrance Library and see what I mean), imagine the Surprise fun one can have by luring people with one fragrance...and delivering something diametrically opposite.

So this is The REAL Secret--the "law of attraction" starts with your honker.

Therefore, my next quest: to make this blog smell like Boing Boing or The Huffington Post.

Ice-ing on the Cake

Had the pleasure of participating in an IDEO-led creative idea-generating session at the NHL Executive Marketing Meetings late last week.  And while the balmy temperatures at Mont Tremblant forced the cancellation of a pond hockey game with the legendary Mark Messier, that bummer was soon outweighed by the benefits of a few hours with IDEO.

IDEO themselves have become legendary in the marketing world for breaking down the barriers of standardized thinking, and after spending a morning with them, I learned why they were named one of the world's most innovative companies by Business Week last year (the only non-consumer goods producer in the Top 20 at that!). While the learning was extensive, these were the three lessons that provided the most Pow!:

1) I've been crowing about this for months, most recently in the last week's elevator carpet post, but the IDEO folks really nailed it in just seven powerful words:

Big ideas are just
tiny ideas in disguise

2) As a longtime, outspoken un-advocate of the Focus Group, I was pleased as punch to hear IDEO's concept on how to draw out truly revolutionary ideas.  Instead of searching out representative samples of the population to find a please-all, "lowest common denominator," IDEO encourages instead a gathering of "extreme"consumers (those wildly passionate about the product or idea) in what they call an

UNfocus Group

3) And finally, as a mindset antithesis to the Deja Vu concept of "having been there before," IDEO encourages us to look at the same things with a brand new set of eyes, as if we've never seen them before.  They call this:

Vuja Dé

And to think all I really expected to take away from this conference was a souvenir hockey puck, an official Habs sweater and the secret cell-phone number of Verizon Wireless's Steven Fox...

Theory 7--How To Sell Art (or Anything Else) Better

As most FOPs know, I collect contemporary art.  I love being around it, and buy way too much of it. 

But even though I enjoy spending an inordinate amount of time in galleries, something has always bugged me about the way art is sold.  No matter how nicely you're treated, an intimidation factor always seems to creep into the process.  You're not just buying a painting or sculpture...you are (now say this with me out loud) "purr-chass-ink a whork of ahhht."  Phew...that's a mouthful.

Maybe Deborah Linke has the answer.  Her full-time gig is selling and marketing her husband Harold's bronze sculptures, and her theory, while developed for her better half, actually works Surprisingly well as a saving grace for the entire art world. She says:

"People fall in love with these pieces.
It's more like an adoption than a sale."

A Pow! moment to hang on your wall. 

While I've heard of people coming into galleries with a few million bucks and filling a home's empty spaces as if they were making a grocery order, most people do indeed "fall in love" with the pieces they buy.  It's like picking out a puppy at the SPCA; something special catches your eye, touches your heart, and becomes a part of your home and your life. 

That said, the art world needs to jump on this and make the purchase process more like adding a member to your family than like buying a mutual fund, people would be more comfortable with it and thus...

Lemme take this one step further.  I like to meet the artists I buy from (check out this earlier post about Patrick Hughes, or the picture below of my family and I with Steve Kaufman at the Masters Gallery in Vail after we bought his portrait of Andy Warhol).  To me, it adds value to the art and more importantly, provides great stories that will bring the piece alive for years to come. 

While, for geographic reasons, a face-to-face visit isn't always possible, why not a quick phone call?  A hand-written note?  Really now, on any given day, how many pieces does even today's most popular artist sell?  Imagine the value-add (and the additional sales) that would come with a personal thank you from the creator him-or-herself?  And if people are laying down $25,000 or more for a print from Sol LeWit or Damien Hirst or Chuck Close, I think they deserve a little personal touch point.

Lemme take this one step further.  I never met an art collector who doesn't want to meet other collectors, show off their stuff, learn about new artists, etc.  Yet the aspects of "community," the driving force behind Web 2.0 (and its multi-billion-dollar babies like Google, YouTube, MySpace and the like), are sadly missing from the gaggle of galleries.  Over and above the "adoption" process, give the "new families" a place to congregate and compare, be it virtual or physical.  Kinda like a dog run or a play group...but with better coffee.

And the more I think of it, perhaps Deborah's "Adoption" doctrine can be layered upon just about any relatively upscale retail sector.   

Touch the heart, feed the head...and you'll make it easier to open the wallet.

The Westmount Drunk

So the other night, I'm backing out of my driveway to get to my weekly hockey game, and I notice a minor commotion in my rear-view mirror.

There, passed out in one of my neighbor's driveways, was a drunk.  His body was sprawled out like a Keith Haring character (making an obtuse snow angel in the fallen flakes), and over him hovered two of my 'hood's best Samaritans, scratching their heads as per what to do with this unseemly and uninvited guest.

What's this got to do with Surprise?  Well, the lesson I learned once on my way for the 45-minute drive to the rink that:

Surprise is created by placing things out of context.

We all have, unfortunately, had to step over an inebriated body or two in our time.  When they are in the vicinity of a city's downtown core, outside a club or in some alley, they are disturbing, but accepted as part of the landscape.  But when they are alone in a driveway of a tony, residential suburb like Westmount, miles away from any bar or liquor store, they indeed tune up the voltage on the shock meter.

While I don't advocate drinking until you're face down in the snow (particularly in the summer), the lesson of the Westmount drunk is that by taking things out of their natural habitats and placing them where they are out of context, the end result is what this blog is all about. 

This is not a major ordeal either; wearing a baseball cap with a tux or running shoes with a suit, playing classical music in the dressing room before the big game (what my son's hockey team does, which is quite unexpected amongst 16-to-18-year-old boys with rampant testosterone), anything that switches two norms into one abnorm is an easy Surprise recipe.

Put it in your cookbook.

The Westmount Drunk (Artistically-enhanced version)

(Oh, and as for the Westmount drunk, the citizens called 911 and an ambulance came.  The siren aroused the man from his stupor, he got to his feet, refused the "official" ride, and since there was no harm done or need to press charges, he stumbled on his merry way along the lights of The Boulevard.  Now go to sleep, children...)    

Timing Is Everything Is Timing Is...

Creating Surprise is about coming up with a buncha new ideas to Pow! people, right?

Well, not always. 

Sometimes your best ideas are the ones you scrapped and abandoned for dead long ago. 

Ideas are a lot like wine, like art, like Microsoft operating systems (like me too, I would venture); sometimes, they need time to be fully developed, to reach their potential and to be properly appreciated.  Forcing them into service "before their time," so to speak, is like taking a smart high school kid and making her the CEO of a multi-national (hey, on second thought...).

I've read a handful of articles in the past few weeks about Valley VCs combing through boxes of five-year-old business plans; searching a slush pile of rejects looking for "the next big thing."  They're not desperate; in so many cases, it's not the idea itself that's bad, it's that the idea is bad for the time...or vice versa, I suppose.

Looking to Surprise? Then don't be afraid to scour your intellectual scrap heap. 

Yesterday's pffffttt may be today's Pow!

What A Difference A Minute Makes...

Andy Sernovitz, King of the Word-of-Mouth marketers (with hyphens!), this one's for you.

I've always said that Surprise doesn't have to be majestic to be effective.  In this game, the effect is way more important than the cause.

For proof, consider the French Deli downstairs from where I'm staying in Vail.  Now, this town is filled with the finest of restaurants (Kelly Liken and Sweet Basil to name just two) and some of the coolest, quirkiest places to see and be seen.

But every time I mention I'm staying in Lionshead Arcade, people say: "Isn't that where the French Deli is?"

Now the French Deli is far from unique.  It serves sandwiches, cappuccino and other foodstuff staples.  So do dozens of other places here.

What makes it stand out is its rather obtuse opening hours (see above). The weirdness of 7:44 a.m. and 4:01 p.m., as silly as it may sound, means way more than anything they serve.  I've overheard people talking about it all over town--in liftlines, even at the local Starbucks.  (And these guys stick to their guns, too.  My son Hayes went down for a coffee at about 4:10 the other day.  Zut alors..fair-may!)

The difference of one minute, a mere sixty seconds, is enough fodder for the Surprise sirens to be sounded.   

Remember that the next time you're spending hours trying to think up ways to Surprise your customers.