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

No Win Situation

Despite the hype and heat of all those bombastic car shows, the American auto industry is in the dumps. 

There are dozens of explanations, but at the root of them all is this one:  BORING CARS!

(Before you motorheads descend on me like vultures with news and pix of futuristic, gas-saving concept vehicles, lemme remind you that those sexy "Concept Cars" are akin to the photos people use on dating sites--nice, but far from reality.)

This is an industry that could use some more champions of Pow!, like Ralph Gilles, the guy who designed Chrysler's 300 but don't bet on it anytime soon.  Instead, heed the words of former Chrysler marketing head Jim Schroer, who groans:

"Most of the
auto companies
are playing to tie."

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.

I Knew We Were Onto Something...

I logged-in in this morning and the Surprise Central Inbox was overflowing with WILDY CAPITALIZED email, all saying just about the same thing:

"Did you see what
Seth Godin said
about SURPRISE?"

Well, I did now.  Here's an excerpt:

"There's nothing wrong with not surprising people. In fact, most of the time, you don't want to surprise people. I don't want to be surprised when I use an electric drill, and I don't want to be surprised when they're doing surgery on me.

But if you want the word to spread, if you expect me to take action I've never taken before, it seems to me that you need to do something that hasn't been done before. It might not feel safe, but if you do the safe thing, I guarantee you won't surprise anyone.

And if you don't surprise anyone, the word isn't going to spread."

That's some major, major-league vindication.

Read the whole thing for yourself, and feel the Pow!er...

A Tale of Two Ads

Was leafing through a very packed Fortune magazine over the weekend, and two ads caught my eye...for two very different reasons.

The first, from The UPS Store, was printed upside down.  While following the Conventional Wisdom of Pow! by being out of context, ads such as these usually disappoint; they're most often dopey, irrelevant gimmicks, kinda like those college handbills that screamed "SEX!" and then explained "Now That I Have Your Attention..."

But not this baby.  The photo of a despondent, head-in-hands sales guy was bolstered by the headline:

Think this upside-down page is surprising?

Imagine finding one in your presentation.

Brilliant use of Surprise...and of that sick feeling in the pit of our stomachs that we've all had to deal with at one time or another.  A real winner.

The other one promotes one of my fave bizbooks of last year, Blue Ocean Strategy.  The ad inn question (and indeed, in question it is) is simple, conservative, to-the-point...well, what do you expect from Harvard Business School Press?

But here's the problem.  You figure that if one has enough cash to buy a full-page ad in Fortune, one would spend the extra couple of bucks and add a hue or two...particularly if the key word in the book's title is

B L U E !!!

I tested 10 people at Airborne, asked them the simple question: "What's wrong with this ad?"  All 10 said the same thing, and pointed out the glaring technicolor disconnect. 

But let's take this one step further.  To take advantage of the power of Surprise, to REALLY stand out, to REALLY make a mark, and to REALLY (well, as the book suggests) "see your business from a new perspective," the Harvard folks should've printed the ad in

    RED! GREEN!   VIOLET!   GOLDENROD!   

    HOT PINK!  TURQUOISE!  ORANGE!

...ANYTHING but in boring black and white.

(I wish the above was my idea, but to be frank, I saw it done over a decade ago by the Labatt Brewery, who bought a full-page ad for its powerhouse Labatt Blue beer in the programme book for the Just For Laughs Festival, and ballsingly re-designed their bottle and label to read Labatt Red.  Red, get it?  Har har.  But believe me, it was shocking, effective and generated tons o' word of mouth.)

It seems awkward to expound high-flying concepts like "leave your competitors behind"  and "change your world" when you limit your rainbow to greyscale.  Open your eyes, folks.

And now, back to the articles...

Vindication Veekend

Well, no more big hair pictures, so I guess the next best thing on this chill-out Saturday is to let smart people back up the ramblings of the folks here at Surprise Central, specifically the Valentine’s Day rant of Submission Marketing.

So, to my point, why do people only tell the truth behind marketers’ backs? 

Because they don’t trust ‘em.

A recent study from the Yankelovich Group revealed that a walloping 76% of consumers don’t believe that companies tell the truth in ads. 

That’s more than three in four.  In essence, an ad is wasted money before it even hits the page or the airwaves.

Ouch.

And as per the Garbage In/Garbage Out theory of those surveys we are forced to fill out, Strategy Mag reports (see? No hard feelings, Claire...)that at the recent Research Industry Summit in Chicago, the following stats were bandied about:

Just 0.25% of the population supplies
32% of responses to online surveys

50% of all survey responses come from
less than 5% of the population

No wonder one senior researcher lamented: "We're perpetuating a fraud."

Uh, have a nice weekend. 

What Is New

Saw this on CBS Sunday Morning while pounding the elliptical machine at the gym (the headphones were cranked to Arcade Fire, but luckily, the closed-captioning was working). 

Taken from the show's annual "Money Edition," the adage sums up the Pow! philosophy in a mere five words:

Be New...
    or
Be Through.

Sounds a bit like the classic "Innovate or Die" dictum, but to us at Surprise Central, innovate connotes incremental improvement, while New means starting all over again...and again...and again.

Boing-Boing...CRASH!

Coolest product of the year so far, and one that plays on every kid's supreme fantasy:

Stride Rite's
Wham-O
Superball Shoes!

What could be more exciting than sneakers that incorporate "SuperBall Zectron technology for extra bounce in the sole"?  (Flubber perhaps, but I digress...)

The only bummer comes from StrideRite's vp marketing Phil Risinger, who admits, surely under duress from the company's lawyers:

"Don't worry.  Kids won't be leaping tall buildings.  Each pair features lugs on the sole to keep kids from defying the laws of gravity."

Thanks Phil.  Next thing you'll be telling us is that there's no Santa Claus...

BOING!

Pepsi's New Wardrobe

How important is Surprise in modern marketing?  So important that some legacy brands are making it systematic.

Pepsi, for example, is "refocusing itself around the concept of 'sustainable discovery'." 

Translated to people talk, they're building Surprise into their consumer face.

As per Brandweek, the brand's bottles, cans and cups will soon have--count 'em--35 new looks EACH. (Holy jeez...if you're one of those obsessive collectors, re-mortgage the house!) And each will be emblazoned with web addresses for exclusive content, contests, games and other mishegass.  (Check out three examples below, and 32 more at the company's Can Gallery).

Expanding the traditional role of a soft-drink, every Pepsi touchpoint now becomes a key to an adventure.  What's more, each brand has a more extensive wardrobe, and a greater selection of "looks," than Cher.

"What we found is young people are embracing change and constantly exploring for the next big thing," said James Miller, director of the Pepsi brand.  "We need to deliver that on an ongoing basis."

...or as we call it here at Surprise Central, the "Constant Search For New Extremes."

Mark of Excellence

One of the great aspects of blogging is the community that it develops. 

I have met some of the smartest people I know since starting up the Pow! engine; in fact, I'm expecting to meet even more as a bunch of bloggers gather for drinks and dinner tonight across the street from my office.

Community also means doing for one another, so when a fellow blogger embarks on a mission, a noble one at that, we come together to help him out.

FOPs will recognize the name Mark McQueen of Wellington Financial .  He's one of the "People I Dig" over to your left, and he's helping raise funds for a needed piece of medical equipment at Toronto's Sunnybrook Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.  If you do nothing else, at least click here and read Mark's reasons why; every click is a caring one. 

And every dollar goes to help someone who's in a situation you pray you will never be in yourself.

Go get 'em, Mark!

Compound Interest

Dr. Richard Bruno responded to last week's post about Friends, Family and Fools by sending along the complete PowerPoint he uses during his "How To" VC speeches.  Of particular interest was his "Bizplans-to-Bucks" timeline. In essence, Dr. Bruno takes entrepreneurs down this path:

• 1,000 Business Plans Are Written
• 150 Are Moderately Credible
• 50 Are Interesting To Read
• 20 Undergo Due Diligence
• 5 Get Funded
• 1 Makes Money

The big Surprise here is not that only one makes money; the big Surprise is the qualifier of "Interesting To Read" as a crucial criteria.  Many times, as entrepreneurs try to appeal to their corporate audience, their brilliant ideas are sanded down and neutered by VC-speak. 

But like anyone else (remember my Everyone's a Kid in Disneyland theory?), Venture Capitalists are susceptible to the right Pow! 

And as Dr. Bruno points out, it may be the difference between being considered for funding...or ending up in the recycling bin.

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

(A great personal story here.  When Garner and I put together our first business plan for Airborne, in one of the slides, I wrote that he and I were professionals with "pristine reputations."

"Pristine?" he said.  "You don't use the word 'pristine' in a VC pitch!  They'll laugh us out of their offices!"

I gave in on a number of points, as Garner was way better versed in the way of VCs than I, but I held my ground on "pristine."

Cut to presentation day, and the VCs are sitting like statues as we plow through our presentation.

Then comes the fateful slide.

"Pristine!" Suddenly, the mannequins came to life.  "Now there's a word you don't see too often!"

All of a sudden, the guys were animated and discussing the meaning of "pristine."  This led to questions about our past, and to hypothetical situations and projections of the business-to-be. 

I looked over at Garner, who had a huge smile on his face, and gave me what soon came to be known as his trademark "life is strange" shoulder shrug.  We were back in the game...)

The Why Behind The What

Way, way back in the Surprise Central time machine, October 27, '06 to be exact, I explained the essence of this blog's logo, calling it:

"...the semblance of a face, wide-eyed and open-mouthed...the epitome of what we look like when we're Surprised."

Well, the brothers Heath--Chip and Dan--take this explanation a step further in their excellent tome Made To Stick.  (Actually, it's their expansion of The Surprise Brow, a term coined by Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen in THEIR book "Unmasking The Face"...but hey, there's a limit to how much I can read.)

The Pow! logo is what we look like when Surprised; here's why we look like that:

"When our brows go up, it widens our eyes and gives us a broader field of vision--the Surprise brow is our body's way of forcing us to see more."

Surprise doesn't stop with the eyes, though.

"In addition, Surprise causes our jaws to drop and our mouths to gape.  We're struck momentarily speechless."

You know what?  This stuff doesn't merely vindicate the ramblings of this street marketer; it's actually quite interesting.  So one last intellectual look at Surprise before I let you go. Go ahead, Heath bros., add some more importance to my beloved subject matter:

"If emotions have biological purposes, then what is the biological purpose of Surprise?  Surprise jolts us to attention.  (It is) triggered when our schemas fail, and it prepares us to understand why the failure occurred.  When (they) fail, Surprise grabs our attention so that we can repair them for the future."

Pow!--Not just fun and games, but clinically proven to be important.  And recommended by four out of five doctors.

Tell Me What I'll Say

It's the weekend, and at Surprise Central, that usually means a little whimsy in the postings, hence this addition to my unabashed "Media Whore" category.

Two weeks from today, I'll be packing for a two-city stop with the prestigious and mammoth Power Within series, where I'll be delivering a speech called "How To Do The Impossible."  As the saying goes, "This Ain't Your Father's Speaker Series"; over 5,000 people are expected in Ottawa on March 6, and attendance can easily top up over 10,000 in Vancouver on March 8, where we perform at GM Place, the home of the Canucks.

I say "We," as the ad below shows, I am sharing the stage with some pretty high-powered, well-known motivators and speakers.

While I am more than ready, and can't wait to take on the challenge (FOPs will remember my "Five Meme" confession that I am much more at ease on stage in front of 5,000 than at a dinner party of five), I've been consumed with thinking of ways how to break the ice with each of my collaborators.

Jim Fannin and Les Brown will be somewhat easy.  I've read the former's S.C.O.R.E. books on and have seen the latter at previous Power Within events.   Same wavelength and real pros.

Kenneth Cole...another breeze.  In addition to being an early fan of his trend-setting, socially-activist ads, I've spent about $50,000 on his shoes, clothes, briefcases, bracelets and the like over the past two decades or so.  He OWES me some time.  Maybe if I spray myself with enough of his RSVP cologne that I just got for Valentine's Day, I can hit him up for a sponsorship; you know the "When Speaking In Front of 5,000 people, Andy Nulman Wears Kenneth Cole" type.

As for Vicente Fox, well, this may be a bit more difficult.  While I've been to Acapulco, that was about 25 years ago.  Perhaps I'll ask him what it was like climbing pyramids with George W. Bush and Stephen Harper (in a vest!).  And then there's that Tortilla shortage thing.  Come to think of it, I hope he's at my table for the VIP lunch.

As much as I respect Tony Robbins, the father of the life-coaching industry, as much as I am impressed with who he has motivated and what he has built, the burning question in my mind is if he REALLY uses the ROM machine (that wild contraption above), as its ads claim.

These babies go for over 14 grand apiece, and claim to produce the same results of an hour-and-a-half running, lifting weights and stretching in a gym in only 4 minutes.   Me being an obsessive workout rat, if Tony does give the thumbs up, I'm gonna do my best to finagle an invite over to one of his homes (particularly the one in Fiji) to try one out.

And then there's Suzanne Somers.  This is sort of a homecoming for Suzanne and yours truly.   About 30 years ago, when I was a kid entertainment reporter for the Sunday Express Newspaper, I had the chance to interview Suzanne, who was in town to headline a charity telethon (photographic evidence below; yes, that WAS my real hair). 

At the time, there was nobody hotter in showbiz.  She was the star of the  "controversial" (at least for those times) sitcom Three's Company, and the dream girl of every teenage boy...of which I was an awkward one.  Despite all the ingredients that could've added up to Diva-dom, she was a joy; open, friendly and made a goofy, uber-nervous kid reporter feel comfortable and important.  I never had a chance to thank her for it...but will finally get it come March.

I'll have the laptop with me, so expect updates as they happen.  Until then, I wonder if the other guys on the Power Within bill are stressing over what they'll say to me...

Claire, You Should Know Better

Claire Macdonald, publisher of Strategy Magazine, I am sad to say that you have become a pain in the butt.

Twice in the past week, you have spammed my office voicemail with a lame-o recorded message inviting me to your Understanding Youth conference.  Now I may not understand youth, but I most definitely understand when I am being disturbed, and that is when I have to listen to your messages.

Now I love your magazine; I have been a subscriber for years (starting way, way back when it was a tabloid on newsprint) and have cited its content countless times amongst colleagues at Airborne and here at Pow! 

What's more, I have actually attended (spoke at, even!) your conferences...which I suppose is why I am now being besieged by an electronic you who chooses to call me only after hours, and does so with cheesy, canned "enormous discount" and "you only have until Friday!" offers.   What, no Viagra or stock tips?

Claire, as Publisher of a progressive Marketing magazine, you should know better.  This stuff sucks, and does you a disservice. (If you MUST do something like this, at least acknowledge the awkwardness of it; tell me that instead of recording your debut CD of cover tunes, you decided to use the studio time to record a conference pitch instead.  Or that you're calling people on Canada's "No Call List" asking them to re-consider.)

I understand the economics, my dear Claire; I'm in the biz of selling stuff, too.  It ain't easy reaching out and pitching to a big, lucrative database in an unobtrusive manner (in fact, we in the mobile space are busy grappling with that conundrum on a daily basis).  But surely there must be a more appropriate way to deal with Strategy's sharp-as-a-tack, marketing-savvy audience than these unreasonable facsimiles of a phone call... 

Uh, next time...why not ask the people you write about for a bit of help?

Amazing Grace

If there was ever a guy who could change the much despised cable TV industry, it's Dean MacDonald. Deano's an old friend with an infectious personality, whose self-deprecating wit belies his razor-sharp brilliance. 

Despite his overly-corporate photo at right, Dean's also one of the most creative and ballsy businessmen I have ever met.  When he's in the zone, he makes Richard Branson look like an actuary.

After leaving the top position at one of Canada's cable behemoths a few years ago and learning what NOT to do, Dean bought a rural based cable network and molded it in his own image, building it into the 5th largest TV/internet/phone service provider in the country. 

He calls it The Amazing Persona. 

No, that's not its slogan; leave it to Dean to create the only cableco in the world with an adjective in its actual name.  Check it out here.

Having the word "Amazing" connected to any service company (particularly a cable company!) is like having the word "Kosher" connected to a bacon cheeseburger.  Yet that's the Surprising standard Dean has set for his organization. 

Now if only the rest of the industry could follow suit...

Surprise As A Weapon

...well, at least as a defense mechanism. 

Robert Hruzek tells the story how he used the power of Pow! to deliver some bad news...and seeing it turn a bad situation into something good. REAL good.

Thanks Bob.  This Surprise stuff ain't just for your entertainment pleasure; as the loud TV ads used to say, "IT REALLY WORKS!"

Submission Marketing--A Love Story

In honor of St. Valentine's Day, I bring you this story of relationships, trust, truthfulness...and talking behind people's backs.

So I'm at an event out of town and there's this "photo op" sponsored by Dodge, where you can pose with a Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robot.  Normally, something like this would clash with the debonair image I try so desperately to project, but since the battling 'bots were an icon of my childhood, I take the picture. 

Unfortunately, they don't give it to me on the spot (where is Polaroid when I need them?); instead, I am handed a slick plastic card, Dodge-branded, with instructions how to pick it up online in 24 hours.

A  bit of a drag...but simple enough, right?

Wrongo.

Next day, I log onto the site to retrieve the snapshot, but before I can get it, I have to "register." 

I don't want to register.  I want my dopey photo.

Burn #1.  And it's not over.

Then I have to answer a series of questions about how I feel about the company, about the promotion itself, about my opinion and how it has changed, blah blah blah... 

Burn #2. All I want is my damn picture, and I want it less and less with each passing query. 

After I answer enough questions to pass my GMAT, I finally get to download it.  Here it is, in all it's glory.  (Given that most people took the aggressor stance in the picture, my position of defeat was almost foretelling.)

The point here, particularly on this day of love, is that Dodge took the glow off what could've been a beautiful relationship.  This ain't Permission Marketing a la Seth Godin; it's what I'm coining as Submission Marketing, and it's the type of marketing being practiced in places like Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and Amsterdam's basement S&M clubs.  It's the type of marketing where you'll say whatever, confess to anything, just to get to the carrot (or glass of water, or piece of stale bread, or digital picture with oversized plastic robot) being held in front of your nose.

Do any of us tell the truth in these forced surveys?  I think not. We lie through our teeth just to jump over the hurdles the companies put in our way to get to what we have really come for.  The worst part is that the "data" gathered is taken as "fact," and used by the survey-makers to score brownie points with their bosses...and to spawn the next such intrusive, obstructive program since this one worked so well.

I didn't learn much in my McGill University computer programming classes, but one adage that has stayed with me is: "Garbage In/Garbage Out." Now I have nothing against Dodge.  I'm sure they're a fine bunch of folks, I like their Viper a lot and I think their new Nitro is a cool vehicle. But this program, and countless others like it, undermines the tender company-client relationship and sends it spiraling down a compost heap.  Garbage out, indeed.

It's not that we can't tell the truth.  Oh, we can and we do, but choose to do so on blogs, on community feedback websites, to each other in chat rooms, school cafeterias, office watercoolers and coffee shops. 

In other words:

We only tell the truth
behind marketers' backs.

I used to say that "True power is controlling what people say behind your back."  That's a near-impossible challenge these days, but the way for marketers to increase their odds is to treat the ones dear to them--we the customers--with respect and trust.

So if you wanna give me a gift,  give it to me first.  THEN ask me a bunch of questions.  If I ignore you, so be it; believe me, you wouldn't have wanted my answers anyway. 

But perhaps your kind offer of a goofy picture or what have you has softened my heart, and my response to your face will be the same ones I would've given behind your back.  Then this is how things would transpire:

I get a gift.

You get real feedback.

I get to speak my mind. 

We start a relationship. 

Everybody wins.

And we all live happily ever after.

Awww...now isn't that a heartfelt sentiment on Valentine's day?

Fools And Their Money

Spent a morning last week speaking at a "How To Raise Capital" VC conference for entrepreneurs, and while waiting my turn, caught the keynote of Dr. Richard Bruno of MSBi Capital and BeyondIf.

Now I've been to a quadrillion of these things, and the majority of the presentations are so stultifying that I stab my sensitive areas with a fork to avoid lapsing into a fatal coma.  But Dr. Bruno, while methodic, pulled no punches when he explained who invests and when, and tossed this grenade into the audience:

As a start-up, when risk is highest, there are only three people who will invest in your business.  I call them The Three Fs:

Friends, Family...
and Fools

Pow! indeed!   Well done, Dr. Bruno.  And thanks to entrepreneurs who aren't scared off by this, there are plenty of rich fools who walk amongst us today.

Amazon.Sheraton?

Checked into the Sheraton in Toronto last week, and instead of a big hotel chain's usual front-desk  accoutrements of either a basket of fermenting apples or nothing at all, I was met by a small, colorful bookshelf. 

Seems that the T.O. hotel is part of the chain's trial project called Bookends, where travelers are offered a selection of books (well, a rather limited one of a half-dozen) to read during their stay.  Borrow for free, but leave without returning and it's added to your room charge.

I dunno...as a frequent traveler and rather voracious reader, this whole thing strikes me as odd.  Yes, boutique hotels do this all the time, and I must admit, have been the source of quite a few additions to my library (hey...do you know what they charge per night?).  But of the five Sheratons chosen for Bookends,  only one--in Waikiki--can be seen as an "extended stay" resort; the other four (two in Toronto, one in Boston and the other in Stamford, Conn.) are of the road warrior, business-stay variety.

Even the woman checking me in was kinda perplexed, admitting that the service was garnering a lot more Hmmmms than actual transactions.

While the idea is well-intentioned, it is oddly-positioned.

First of all, the limited selection almost renders this a non-starter. 

Secondly, I would suspect a hefty magazine or two--with option for subscription--may be better suited for a Sheraton stay. 

Thirdly, if they really did want to go with books, why not co-opt a publisher looking for publicity, and like Oprah's Book Club, choose and specially-publish one a month that the guests can take with them with compliments of the hotel chain?

I'm all for a check-in Surprise, and I'm all for promoting literacy, but without proper relevance, Sheraton's Bookends runs the risk of being more about "ends" than "books."  (And if we are truly desperate for a book while ensconced in a big hotel, there's always Gideon's Bible...)

AutoRoll of the Dice

A new addition here at Surprise Central this week is the AutoRoll, a blog recommendation widget you'll see on your left if you scroll down a touch.

While still in beta, it's an impressive lil' reach-out device. According to Jean-Baptiste Rudelle, CEO of recommendation tech co. Criteo, AutoRoll displays links to other blogs that have a strong affinity to this one, thus lists blogs based on readers with similar interests and reading habits.

Does it work?  Well, 48 hours after first installation, while I can't exactly say I am drowning in a sea of blog love, the new visits I've enjoyed are quality pings, coming from people who write about marketing, art, pop culture and do so loudly.  Best of all, they're coming from all over the world.

So check out where Pow! leads you by clicking on my AutoRoll, or get your own by clicking here.

 

Higher Education

Surprise marketing ain't just for the guerrillas, the street-fighters, or--as Tom Peters calls 'em--the "weirdos and freaks" no more.  We're part of America's most hallowed hall of academia, bay-bah!

Biggest Surprise of all is not just that Pow!has been usurped by Harvard Business School Executive Education, but how they've gone about promoting it.

There must be something "special" in Boston water these days, because Harvard's ads for their four exec marketing management courses are spiced with terms like "Break Free.  Start thinking and acting differently" (sounds like Steve Jobs or maybe even Timothy Leary may have got to 'em as well), and resplendent with a variation on the U's classic coat of arms (check the adage above).

If the boys at Hah-vahd Yahd (well not just boys anymore, given that the school just named its first female President) are embracing their wild side, imagine the ramifications for the Fortune 500 in a few years.  Yee-hah!

Designer Thievery

Douglas Mandel (looking pensive at left) is a talented guy with a lot of guts. A designer and retailer of understatedly gorgeous, high-end menswear, his Kamkyl  boutique has been burglarized--get this, insurance brokers--three times (!!!) in the past six months, to the tune of $120,000 in losses.

Instead of wallowing in pity or packing it it, Douglas has taken a different tack, and is turning his misfortune into buzz. 

Last week, he sent me an email announcing the cheekily-titled "It's a Steal" sale, where he's clearing out his remaining merchandise to start anew.   Two shirts, two jackets, a pair of pants, a coat and a scarf later (these thieves have taste, I must admit), I consulted with the geniuses at Surprise Central to come up with ways to further turn his lemon grove into tanks of lemonade.

Our recommendations?

1) Expand the ballsy target role. Establish yourself as:
"The TRUE Fashion Victim"
and your stuff as 
"Good Enough To Steal...But Better To Buy"
or
"Inspired Looks, Desired by Crooks"

2) Okay, no guard dogs, but why not flank your doors with Fort Knox-like sentries and overnight armed guards?  Yes, it may be costly, but perhaps not as much as three break-ins and increased insurance premiums.  Jewelry stores and art galleries do it all the time, but menswear boutiques? Establish a unique high-security look and you'll get invaluable media coverage around the world.  Then dare the crooks to hit you again.

3) Set up a mail-order business from your site and deliver each piece in a lock-box that wails like a burglar alarm when opened.  Have each piece delivered by Brinks.

4) Offer a reward of a year's wardrobe to anyone who can provide info that leads to the arrest of these S.O.B.s.  Offer to design prison uniforms for the perpetrators once they get caught.  Do it now and show it off in your store. 

5) Better yet, stage your next fashion show in a jail.

Okay...I think it's time to stop drinking. 

So go get 'em, Douglas.  Take your place alongside Cartier and Versace and Rolex and Edvard Munch's "The Scream"--a creator of tangible aesthetics that people want so badly they will risk prison to get their hands on them.

Ooof! in Advertising

Been holding onto this for the right time, but following Douglas Mandel's tale of woe...

...consumers once again benefit from a poor retailer's misery.

Paper View

Even commodities can benefit from the dose of Pow!

Case in point is the photocopy paper from a company called Hemlock.  Now I can't think of anything more dull than the slabs of paper we see piled up in our office supply closets (or hidden in our briefcases as we slip a package or two home for the kids.  But I digress again...), but Hemlock's is a little different: it's 100%  post-consumer waste recycled.

So what?  Well, that's the attitude they wanted to counter, so they (along with environmentally responsible online retailer Frogfile) approached a "socially conscious" Vancouver ad agency called Change with the mandate to:

"...package their copy paper (in a way) that highlighted the environmentally friendly features of the product, and stood out."

The end result was paper packaging that not just looked cool when stacked up on a shelf, but had a practical side as well.  The outer wrapping could be folded, origami-style into a cute lil' tree, which, as Change puts it, "can be put on a desk as a constant reminder of trees being saved."  You can see both in the blue box at right.

Compare this to the standard stuff we pick up, Zombie-like with a big yawn at Office Depot, and you see that a little Surprise, and a lot of soul, goes a long way.

Think your product and/or service can be Pow!ed? 

Then you're not trying hard enough.

(And to top things off, Change has one of the smartest, most ingenious logos I've seen in ages.  Their message gets across in six letters, albeit with a bit of a twist.  Check it out here.)

Splatter Zone

By now, faithful FOPs know of my obsessive love of contemporary and POP art, which is why this site is one of my faves of the year so far:

http://www.jacksonpollock.org

There are plenty of "create your own art" sites, but few that can replicate an artist's style as faithfully as this one.  The results are Surprisingly similar to the originals.  And the interface is so easy, even a kid can do it (which is what critics originally said about Pollock...but I digress).

Best part, no mess to clean up, no matter how wild you splatter.

So go ahead...generate some content!

Use? Full!

The Surprise is not that Jim Whimpey and his Brisbane Creative Team came up with something as sharp, biting and relevant as this...

...the TRUE Surprise is the incredible, intelligent and warm feedback to it.

It's double-barreled action/reaction like this that warms up my psyche after a cold, hard day.

(Thanks to Mark McQueen for sending it along!)

Theory 6--It's ALL User-Generated Content!

Twas at a marketing dinner meeting with a client last week, and at one point during a debate about user-generated content, a particularly perky member of the gathering effervescently enthused:

"Never before in the history of media have users been so important in the creation of content!"'

Not wanting to be rude, or lose the client, I held my tongue (with a forceps!), but this is what was running through my head:

All content
starts out
as user-generated!

As a term, User-Generated Content is more than a mere buzzword; it's become the messiah of media, a panacea for all our problems. Users will save our businesses!  They will design our products, write our ads, sing our jingles and develop the movies we will fight to place our products within! 

Oh puh-leeeze!  Stop me before I shoot someone, videotape the murder, upload it to YouTube, win a "Most BadAss Video" contest sponsored by Axe Deodorant and get to open for 50 Cent on his next tour.

The difference with content today IS NOT the people creating it; the difference is the wealth and breadth of the platforms they now have available to distribute it.

Let's think about this for a second. We'll use The Beatles as an example. 

Before they were the world's best-selling  and most influential pop artists, they were  four lads from Liverpool, playing on the back of flatbed trucks, at outdoor block parties, at the local coffee house...anywhere they could to be seen and get their songs heard.  The Cavern Club was their YouTube; the local church basement talent show their American Idol.  Buzz builds, they're seen by Brian Epstein, he signs them to a management contract and the rest is history.  Suddenly, swarms of  other "users" pop up all over the world, trying to follow in their footsteps.  It's the way of showbiz.

The same story goes for virtually any artist of any type:

Before they were them,
they were one of us.

• Andy Warhol was a graphic designer from Pittsburgh (glamorous, huh?).
• Stephen King was a high school English teacher living in a trailer in Maine, writing short stories for pulp-fiction men's mags to make ends meet.
• Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were two geeky kids tinkering around in a garage.
• Guy Laliberte, the genius behind Cirque du Soleil, was a street performer, walking on stilts, eating fire and playing the accordion(!!!).
• Every superstar athlete was the adorable five-year-old tyke in the uniform two sizes too big. 

I could go on forever. 

There's a chasm we all cross on our way from "amateur" to "professional."  Granted, these days the lines have blurred somewhat (this blog being a prime example), but while the ways and means we use to MAKE that transition have become more technically advanced and readily available, the fact remains that those who actually "use" them have remained the same.  They are you, and me, and that kid down the street who will one day sell out arenas across the country.

So to my bubbly client, let me say that in the history of content creation, it has ALWAYS been generated by users.  The Surprise factor in all this is when one of us actually crosses the chasm.  Society's superstars are just users on steroids (amongst other substances...).

What'll be REALLY different, and downright scary, is when content is generated by something OTHER than users (like machines, rendering us irrelevant).  Thankfully, even the most advanced high-tech art (see the brilliant work of Joshua Davis, for example), needs one of us.

For now...

Surprise Bowl Sunday

Two tales of Surprise sent along today...which in itself is a great Surprise to me, given that IT IS Super Bowl Sunday, when young marketers heads are absorbed by expensive TV commercials.

The first comes from Gary Sherman of Austin,Texas, who raves of his Pow! experience with Wine.com (and contrasts its relevance with just getting a pile of free stuff from folks like Amazon).  Well worth the read, so click here.

The second comes from a photographer named Robin Spencer, via Seth Godin.  In this post, Robin tells of his experience with his Subaru dealer, which started as a Pow!, but degenerated into a Pffffftt... 

As I said months ago, one Surprise isn't enough. For Surprise marketing to really work, it has to be a flow, a series, and one that

Constantly Expands
The Boundaries of Extreme

Robin himself puts it best when he says:

"To raise someone's expectations then not fulfill them is worse than mediocrity."

Surprise Candidates

From someone who knows well the profound importance of Pow!, (her eponymous ad agency lives loud with its BANG! philosophy) Linda Kaplan Thaler gazes into her crystal ball in the most recent Fortune Magazine and sees Surprise in 2008's political campaign ads:

"They'll all have to ante up the 'E' factor.  We have become an entertainment-centric society, where the path of least resistance is the one that amuses or startles us most."

Just don't leave any of them unattended around Boston, okay?

High Flyer

Okay, one last Surprise story from the NHL All-Star Game in Dallas. 

Perhaps the most exciting part of the game itself took place during the intermissions, when two full-sized stages, filled with instruments, amps and other musical paraphernalia, were lowered--that's right,  lowered--from the rafters of the American Airlines Center to ice level, one at each end.

In between periods 1 and 2, country duo The Wreckers played a couple of quick songs at the North end and scooted, but in between periods 2 and 3, uber-hip powah-rawkahs The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus delivered a more inspired, somewhat lengthier performance at the South end.

Suddenly, a showdown. The intermission clock was counting down, and fast.  The boys were in mid-set, jumping about and pouring their hearts out, while the ice-scraping Zamboni growled and steamed like a bull at the other end of the rink, waiting for its cue to clean. 

The Zamboni made its move...and so did the stage... 

15 feet or so up in the air, that is.

The oooh, ahhs and pointed fingers at this somewhat precarious spectacle equaled, if not out-did, any of the thrills provided by the players that eve.

So as the Zamboni did its turns around the ice, the Red Jumpsuiters did theirs high above it. 

And one can only wonder the initial reaction in some NHL boardroom, during the debate on how to deal with a band that wanted to play and an ice surface that had to be polished, when someone raised his or her hand and suggested "Hey, why don't we just raise the stage?"

It's this type of (pardon the pun) pie-in-the-sky thinking that is the embryo of great Surprise.

Lube Is All You Need

A publicist friend who is astute but shy (let's call her "Please don't use my name!") called to say she agreed with yesterday's post about the concept of "selling" vs. "making it easy to buy."

But then she added her pearls of wisdom:

"You can't call Oprah to do something on you.
You've gotta do something to make Oprah call you."

Swim Sinks

Note to self--never check your inbox before going to bed.

It's just about midnight, and I've been besieged by email about the Cartoon Network's Boston debacle, where snarky digital billboards for its Adult Swim Aqua Teen Hunger Force show were mistaken as terrorist-planted explosive devices.  Click here for more details if you need 'em.

So, the question every ping asked: "Great Surprise marketing, or what?"

My answer:  Or what.

While I think everybody's kinda overreacting and should pop a Valium or three, the fact remains that this was Stupid, not Surprise.

Surprise marketing should delight, not incite.  While indeed delivering Pow!, this dopey stunt did so with the force and subtlety of a kick in the nuts; the definition of Surprise to a sadist, perhaps.  And while I'm certain it will drive puh-lenty word-of-mouth, the words driven may not be part of a marketer's dream vocabulary.

Look, I'm sure this was relatively well-intentioned (Christ, I sure hope it was), but severely backfired.  In a jittery USA, nobody would be that dumb as to promote a cartoon show by scaring the crap out of a metropolis.  There are better ways to Surprise than to jokingly cry "Fire!" in a crowded theater.

Somewhere in a cave, carved into a deserted mountain range, Osama Bin Laden is chuckling.

I'm going to sleep.

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

UPDATE: 

They'll only answer questions about their hair?   Two arseholes.  The less said about them, the better.