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

Theory 1

I have a theory (actually, I have many, hence the quantifying nature of this post's title), and it goes like this:

"Everyone's a Kid in Disneyland."

Here's what the hell it means:  I don't care if you're a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, a resident of an Oklahoma trailer park, a visitor from New Guinea or the guitarist for an emo band--when you're in Disneyland, you are equal.  You may marvel at different things and at different degrees, but you marvel nonetheless.  You can resume your hierarchal identities and self-importance outside the gates, but inside 'em, you are one homogeneous mass of wide-eyed, open-mouthed, finger-pointing goofballs.

And there's nothing wrong with that.  That's what Surprise does to us. Cause and effect.  Hallelujah!

The point of all this relates to the date of this post--October 31.  Hallowe'en.

That's when many offices, schools and other edifices that gather people together become Disneyland...for a day, at least.  Too bad you can't be here at Airborne Entertainment and hear the squeals as countless employees come through the door in various stages of costume.  We are all one mass of goof.  The bald guy's wearing a wig (he's at the extreme left in the photo below); the demure woman is in a karate outfit, the CFO is dressed like a witch, my partner is in Pimp garb, the new kid is in a honeybear costume (well, at least that's what I think it is), and so on. Some people go against the grain of their personalities, others further exploit their stereotypes.  No matter what, the Surprise and delight as each Airborner makes his or her grand appearance is a blast.

We'll wait until next year to do it all again, but the element of Surprise is sending waves of pleasure throughout the 7th floor of 3575 St. Laurent.

Somewhere, perhaps somewhere very cold, Uncle Walt is smiling.

Slight of Head

Another candidate for the "Vindication File" I spoke of earlier.  This one from Fast Company, which has been a monthly read of mine for years (I still have boxes full of the mag from the heady early Internet days, when each issue was the size of the Manhattan phone book).  In it, Keith H. Hammonds pens a piece on Marshall Monroe, a Disney-trained, uber-creative consultant, and says:

"Do you believe in magic?  It's tempting not to.  For as often as big-company CEOs espouse bromides about innovation, there's still a global shortage of pixie dust.

Too much of what passes for creativity turns out to be small-scale rip-offs and design tweaks.  When we went from two to three razor blades, that was a 'wow!' moment,  By five blades, the thrill had passed."

It's tough to generate new magic (trust me; as a kid magician, I learned the ropes and gave it up when I became bored with the constant variation on the same three-or-four themes), and it's tough to generate new Surprise. 

The two are intertwined.  Slight-of-hand meet slight-of-head.  What makes magic "Magic!" is the basic foundation of Surprise--expecting one thing, then being handed something else that's unexpected. In fact, that's the basic foundation of the entire entertainment industry.   I've found a great quote from Warren Beatty on the element of Surprise in showbiz, and have put together a  ridiculously-long post on the subject, which I'm currently trying to slice-and-dice into manageable chunks.

Until then, I'm gonna try to find me a wholesaler of Pixie Dust.

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.

Nice!

Sometimes, you can Surprise people--shock them into spasms, actually--just by being nice.  I know that sounds sucky, but in a world of bitchiness, nastiness, pains-in-the-ass and worse, the simple civil act of being nice stands out like a billowing palm tree in a swamp of skanky weeds. 

(Reminds me a lot of what the late M. Scott Peck used to preach in his "People of the Lie" book, that evil was the constant and that good was the aberration...but I digress.)

With books like "Love is the Killer App" and "The Likeability Factor," Tim Sanders, ex-of Broadcast.com and Yahoo (how's that for a Life 2.0 pedigree?) has made a career out of "nice."  In fact, in Ries and Trout terms, he "owns the word," I would say.

I saw Tim speak at at recent Power Within conference in Toronto and was blown away.  Check out what he has to say at his site or blog. 

One Man's Punch is Another Man's Prisoner

This from Austin Hill, an incredibly bright guy, forward thinker and Internet pioneer during the days of Zero Knowledge:

"When I first saw the url for your blog, I started to chuckle.   I thought immediately of the tagline ‘The Prisoner of War in Between the Eyes” and thought of the great meme of being held captive by your own mental limits, lack of imagination or willingness to be different.   

Eagerly pasting the url into my browser, imagine my SURPRISE when I was introduced to the same idea from a completely different angle."

Surprise generates an immediate response, and any one of its sparks can ignite a number of different flames.  To me, POW! is a loud sound effect, a smack in the face; to Austin it's a P.O.W., a person trapped.  To say the least, I was Surprised by his perception.

Want more Surprise?  Check out what Austin's up to on his blog or his newest start-up project.

Patrick Moves Me

One of the most obvious examples of Surprise hangs on my wall behind my desk.

Unlike any other piece of art I own (and I own a lot of wacky art), this one never fails to stun the one who looks at it. It’s a painting by Patrick Hughes, one of  Great Britain's most celebrated Pop artists. I could spend hours trying to describe it, but to put it most simply, it’s a panoramic view of Venetian canals, painted on an accordion-like, three-dimensional canvas.

What makes it Surprising is how it “moves” when you walk across it. Using a reverse perspective (where he paints the near on the canvas’s furthermost “valleys” and the far on its closest “peaks”), Patrick creates an illusion of movement so realistic and profound that people have actually had to sit down due to sea-sickness upon viewing it.

Pop art was always meant to shock the senses, but when it does so intensely and physically, you know that there’s a mad genius behind it. I had the extreme pleasure of meeting Patrick earlier this year (he's the happy tall guy next to me below in front of the Venice painting), and his brilliance goes way beyond the canvas; his obsession with twisted reality extends to books on verbal puns and optical illusions.  A fascinating man!

Do yourself a favor and check him out. Then drop his name to impress your friends!

Typing In Stereo

I gave speeches at three (yes, three!) different events today and the reaction was the same each time: 

"I didn't know you were a suit-and-tie-guy!"

For some reason, most people perceive me as a “jeans-and-t-shirt guy,” so when I show up somewhere--anywhere, I guess--wearing a custom-made navy blue suit, a wildly-striped Italian shirt and contrasting op-art Duchamp tie, well...Surprise!

The reality though is that I have over 30 suits and over 100 ties in my closets. It's just that the Andy Nulman “stereotype” is anything but formal.

My learning in all this is that in the quest for Surprise, stereotypes are your best and most reliable friend. They’re the lob ball that makes it easy to really hit one out of the park.

And they’re everywhere. When a TV actor spends her summer in a Broadway musical, the reaction is usually "I never knew she could sing!" When the quiet kid at the back of the class stars for the school basketball team, you’ll inevitably hear “I never knew he was an athlete!”

This is why there’s also such incredible fascination over cheesy TV shows like “Dancing With the Stars." People like to put others into boxes. When we break out of them, it's like the proverbial girl popping out of the birthday cake. Boinnnng!

I use people as an example, but the same goes for products, stores, companies, ideals—preconceived notions about ‘em lead to deep-rooted stereotypes; stereotypes you can easily break, reverse and exploit.

People have asked me “How do you generate Surprise?” There’ll be a lot more "here's how" in posts to come, but today's lesson is perhaps the easiest:

1. Find your inner stereotype
2. Head in the opposite direction.
3. Then watch for the gasps.

In a utopian world, perhaps this could help us counter racial ignorance. Get a bigot to spend some quality time with a minority they have long pigeonholed and let them be Surprised by the reality: "Geez, I always thought you (insert name of minority here) guys were (insert foolish stereotype here)."

Well, I can dream, can’t I? 

The Last Lafley

Procter and Gamble chairman and CEO A.G. Lafley was just named "Grand Marketer of the Year" by trade mag Brandweek.  I dig Brandweek's take on the industry, and I dig Lafley more.  He took moribund old-school behemoth and turned it into a cutting-edge innovation breeding ground.  This from the magazine:

Lafley credited P&G's post-2000 turnaround to marketing methods that he called "pleasant surprises."

For example, putting mirrored ads in women's bathrooms asking, "Is your lipstick still on?" and running targeted five-second TV spots with the same theme helped P&G increase its sales of its Cover Girl Outlast lipstick by 25%.

Hit consumers where they don't expect it and offer a positive solution, he advised:

"It's not about being at all the touchpoints, it's about being at the right touchpoints when the consumer is open to it."

It's one thing when little ol' me champions the power of Surprise; it's another thing when a guy like Lafley does, and espouses it in a keynote speech.

Not that there have been too many challenges to this theme so far, but I'm putting Lafley's quote into a "Vindication File" if the need to call up heavy artillery ever arises.

 

Lofty Concepts

After spending half of the last post moaning about air travel, I realized that if this blog is gonna have any cred, I'd better minimize the rants and maximize the dance.  So, to follow-up on what sort of Surprise I'd love to see from airlines, here's what's on top of my head...

1. LotoAir:  Every flight, something of value would be given away to some lucky seat-holder.  Airlines could get this stuff free for promotional purposes, or trade off an ad in the in-flight mags.  Just imagine: "Ms. Gilda Donahue in 17B, you may be stuck in the middle, but now you can listen to Steelers Wheel's 'Stuck in the Middle With You' on your brand new iPod Shuffle!"...or something like that.  If I were Sony, I'd be doing this RIGHT NOW with their Portable Readers. 
2. Give It All Away:  A captive audience of a couple of hundred people exclusively yours for one-to-15-hours.  What an ideal audience to seed with new snack foods, new magazines, new books!  If I ever turn this stuff into a book, that's the FIRST thing I'm gonna do. (Air Canada used to do with with magazine racks at the gates of selected flights, but I haven't seen it in over a year.  A nice effort, but the presentation was boring and lacked "pop."  There's a big difference being given a gift and being told: "There's a bunch of stuff over there.  Grab some.")
3. Movin' On Up:  They do this at concerts all the time--give some poor schlep stuck in the cheap seats a chance to move up to the front row.   Play "Pomp and Circumstance" or "Hail to the Chief" as they make their way down the aisle. Give 'em a t-shirt to commemorate the occasion.
4. Fill The Front: Never mind moving one person, move as many as you can. I don't care what the excuse is ("We don't have enough meals" or other Standard Operational Bullshit), if you got empty seats up front, fill 'em.  Yes, frequent fliers should get upgraded, but those who scrimp and save for an annual journey deserve a shot as well.  Make it into a game.

I'm heading back to New York in about a week. I'll keep my eyes and brain open for more ideas and report back to you.

...And Now, a Response

In his comment about my Mesquite restaurant post (official title: Consistent = Boring), Roger von Oech asked if I'd want my bank or airline to Surprise or bore me, and if I'd accept inconsistent service from them.

Well, I guess I should've made this clearer earlier:  when I speak of the power of Surprise, I speak exclusively of the positive.  Obviously, a negative Surprise gives you a kick somewhere in a vicinity 180 degrees removed from Roger's proverbial "seat in the pants."

Actually, I get Surprised at the bank all the time.  My bank is RBC, and I happen to be  B L E S S E D with an account manager named Mauro Pampena.  He--are you ready for this?--calls ME to tell me things like mortgage rates are going down and that he has ALREADY pre-arranged a re-financing of my current one to take advantage of the change.  Examples like this are the norm, not the exception.  The only way I'd even consider changing banks is if Mauro would leave for another one.

As for the airlines, I'd be  T H R I L L E D  if they would improve their service to reach the lofty level of inconsistency.  I beg, in vain, for even the littlest of my definition of Surprise from them.  I could constipate the world's bandwith with my personal flying horror stories, but I'll recount just one--my recent flight from Philadelphia to Las Vegas on USAirways.  It was delayed two hours while the airline had to escalate matters to a Board Meeting (I'm serious; so explained a very sheepish pilot) for a decision whether to remove cargo or remove last-minute stand-by passengers to bring our overweight plane down to acceptable take-off poundage. 

T W O   H O U R S !!!

And guess what USAirways did for all us passengers during these 120 minutes of suspense? 

N U F F I N G !    S W E E T  F.A. !

They pulled a Bret Easton Ellis, an Elvis Costello--they did Less Than Zero.

So Roger, my long-time idol, my new-found blog pal, I would've accepted any sort of Surprise from this so-called airline.  A Micro-Surprise would've sufficed.  A Nano-Surprise even.  A bag of pretzels.  A movie (they eventually showed one once we were airborne and had to gall to charge for it).  A sing-along.  A glass of water (okay, to be fair, we did get some at the 100-minute mark). 

Here was a golden opportunity to change a bad situation into one I'd always remember, and talk about for ages. That's how Surprise works.  That's what Surprise does.  Instead, it was yet another flight experience I'll have to go into therapy to forget.

Maybe USAirways should hire Mauro Pampena...

First, a REAL Surprise...

How's this for shock--my first-ever blog comment comes from one of my all-time marketing idols...my first mentor, if you will.

When I was in University, my buddy Sheldon Davis and I were disciples of Roger von Oech.  He was the creative marketer's dream and as students, we eschewed the boring texts our profs assigned us and read Roger's "A Whack on the Side of the Head" and A Kick in the Seat of the Pants" instead.  We had a blast applying his theories then, and personally, I've been influenced by the man ever since.  He was the first real "marketing guru," and although the two foremetioned books were published over two decades ago, they are still the most relevent creativity-enhancers out there (although I hear that British fashion maven Paul Smith's recent tome is up there as well).

Look, in my previous careers as CEO of the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival and as a showbiz journalist, I met every rock star, movie star, porn star, politician and assorted celeb-type that you can imagine. 

Yet I was star-struck and tongue-tied when I had dinner with Henry Mintzberg recently.   

And I'm still in shock that Roger von Oech took the time to comment on this blog. Unsolicted, I may add.

You can check out Roger's blog at blog.creativethink.com...but please remember to come back here when you're done.

I need you more than he does  ;)

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.

Consistent = Boring

There's a restaurant near my house called Mesquite.  It's about as inconsistent as a restaurant can get. My favorite dish, the steamy black bean soup, is NEVER the same.  Sometimes it's black, other times it's red, sometimes it comes with a couple pieces of steak floating inside, other times with a tortilla chip.  The fact that I never really know which black bean soup I'm getting is kinda irrelevant because no matter how it comes out, it's delicious and mouth-melting. 

Now I'm sure that Mesquite could put together some kind of standardized recipe and service manual to ensure the same thing every time around, but then they'd be like all the other restaurants.  Their inconsistency is part of their charm. The element of the unknown, of the (dare I say it) Surprise, keeps me coming back. 

Consistency is not all that it's cracked up to be.  Surprise, in its purest sense, depends on deviation from the norm.

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!)

I Didn't Say It Was Gonna Be Easy

I tested the waters by speaking about Surprise at a Casecamp this summer. (I'm a big fan of these "unconferences," but more on them in future posts).  Anyway, during the Q&A session someone remarked that it's not easy to keep searching for a new extreme. 

"No problem," I replied.  "Your competition will do it for you."

That's the cold reality today.  Either you do it, or someone else will.

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.

It's a Cliche, But...

This was not my favorite way to spend an afternoon, trust me, but to back up something I said in an earlier post (to wit: the opportunity to fully implement "Surprise" into business remains untapped), I did the perfunctory Google search on the word.

There were over 260 million search results.

I combed through more than 1,000 pages of 'em.

And while I learned a lot about gifts, about the town of Surprise, Arizona (which slurped up most of the web's best surprise URLs), about Kinder Surprise (the European chocolate egg with the toy inside), about surprise parties and about improv comedy troupes, I learned nothing about how Surprise works in marketing and why business needs it.

That's my job, I guess.

I thought I was into something before. 

Now, I am sure of it.

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.