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

What I Learned This Week—The Amazing Benefit of Honoring Other People's Kids

Even the most non-religious amongst us recognizes “Honor Thy Mother and Father” as one of the Ten Commandments.  This ain’t just any commandment though, many pious Jews argue that it’s the most important of them all.  More than a mere commandment, they see it as a “mitzvah,” a good deed, something recognized as a precious, golden moment between children and their parents.

While I’m no Talmudic scholar, I have often pondered whether the opposite is true; in other words, whether parents’ honoring their sons and daughters is equally as highly regarded and important. 

That is a debate I will leave to others better educated and more righteous then yours truly. 

However, one that I will open is the culmination of this week’s learning, namely:

One of the finest

“good deeds” you can do is

honor the children of others.

This is something I learned first-hand at Just For Laughs in 1995. Given the 24/7 nature of running the Festival back then, I spent the last two weeks of July sequestered at the event’s host hotel, where my wife would often bring my two young children to visit in an effort to prove that yes, they still had a daddy.

That year, there was a successful animated cartoon producer who came to the event.  He was somewhat slimy, but not off the charts as per Hollywood standards.  He often noticed me traipsing about the hotel with my sons, and one day, stopped us.  He asked my boys their names, asked if they knew his show (which they did), and then brought out a huge bag stuffed with videocassettes, t-shirts and other merchandise from said show for them.  My kids went crazy, and we all thanked the man profusely.

Cut to a few years later. 

The producer’s show was long off the air, and he hadn’t had anything even resembling a hit since.  That, combined with his somewhat prickly personality, rendered him essentially worthless and invisible at the event when he made a reappearance.  Those who didn’t give him the time of day simply ignored him completely.

Except for me. 

I treated him with respect and warmth.  Not because I liked him much; because I remembered what he had done for my kids.  That was more important than anything. Yes, perhaps there was a little “brown-nosing” in his initial outreach, but no matter what, back then he had done something while most did nothing.

That’s the true secret of getting into someone’s good books—do right by their offspring.  There are few things more appreciated, or rewarding. 

You may forget

who’s done right by you,

but you’ll never forget

who’s done right by your kids.

Just this past week, I was asked to speak at Dawson College in the middle of an incredibly busy period.  There was no “win” in it for me, but since the subject was entrepreneurship, I said I would do it only if I could do so alongside my 23-year-old son Hayes, who had recently opened up his own custom furniture design business.  Much to my delight, they said yes, and even more delightful was the way the organizers—and the crowd—treated my son.  (That's us up above.)  They now have a license to ask me for just about anything.

Later that day, I went to an art exhibition, where I told Corinne Asseraf, the gallery owner the Dawson story.  She asked about Hayes’ work, and I showed her.  She was so impressed that she offered to display some of it in her galleries (she has three!) and introduce him to some of her more avant-garde clients. 

Which is why, needless to say, I left that exhibition glowing.  

And which is why, the next day when one of my hockey coaches from the summer asked if I could get his son an internship position with us at Just For Laughs, I just had to return the “pay it forward” karmic favor. 

And which is why I donate to a charity set up by one of my old high school friend’s son, and why I just sponsored a colleague’s daughter in a Christmas fundraiser.

Let’s face it, sometimes these offspring offers have an ulterior motive, but in the end, who really cares?  By honoring our kids, their mothers and fathers are being honored in the process.

Perhaps that should be the 11^th Commandment.

Giving Back. Surreptitiously.

A little dicey, but man, the Pow! factor on this is incredible.

From my rabble-rousing buddy Skwerl comes this story about wireless carrier TalkTalk from London, VERY reminiscent of my reverse shoplifitng tale back here over two years ago:

Chris Fitch, who ran TalkTalk's "put-pocket" squadron, said the campaign was designed to “give something back for a change” to cash-strapped consumers."Every time I put money back in someone's pocket I feel less guilty about the fact I spent many years taking it out.”

Apparently, the London police ain't too fond of the initiative,(well, what did ya expect?), but here at Surprise Central, we raise a toast to TalkTalk, particularly for the textbook following of Surprise-generating tactic #5 "Look In The Rear-View Mirror" (all nine of which are featured here, by the way).

(And by the way Skwerl, your Antiquiet house ads whup ass.  Gotta draw on this spirit when I hit Rock Camp in November.)

Making Meetings More Memorable

One of the challenges thrown at business authors is to adapt the expertise, theories and tactics contained within their books to different industries, usually in the form of op-ed pieces or lengthy blog posts.

The following is both.  I wrote this for Pow! on a rainy Sunday back in March, but it just ran last week in SuccessfulMeetings.com (and in the Successful Meetings magazine).  You can link over to the post here...or just enjoy in below, courtesy of yours truly, author of both the book and the article:

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Surprise: The Secret to More Memorable Meetings

Let's face it—most conferences are stultifyingly boring. Sessions are the perfunctorily-attended "necessary evil" between networking opportunities at the bar. Conference floor booths are aisles of sameness; pamphlets, people in logoed shirts and takeaway promotional items that run the gamut from bouncy balls to mints to keychains. We attend, but we tend to forget as soon as we leave.

But it doesn't need to be this dire, because the element of surprise is the antidote to stale, stuck meetings. Not only do surprise tactics wake up a moribund crowd, but they bring attention to your company, product, panel discussion, or event, and more importantly, ensure that attendees talk about you and your event long after the physical gathering is over.

You don't need big budgets to pull these off, either; in the world of surprise, little things mean a lot, and guts are more important than bucks. Here are a number of tricks and tips to delightfully surprise your meeting's attendees, and create Pow! moments that will get them talking, keep them motivated, and ensure they remember.

1. Beat the Clock

A small tactic that will have an epic, exponentially disproportionate effect: Let people out 15 minutes to 20 minutes prior to a session's scheduled end-time. This is a meeting's equivalent of a three-day weekend. In all my years, I've never heard anyone complain: "Man, that meeting was too short."

2. The Best Booth Giveaway Ever

We all have enough pens, keychains, t-shirts, and the like to last us a lifetime. The best premium items I've ever seen in a booth were doled out by Austin-based Bazaarvoice—a series of adhesive, tongue-in-cheek tags to personalize those bland and clunky badges conference-goers are forced to wear. The ribbons shouted out slogans like "I Need Coffee" and "I'm Kind Of A Big Deal" and solicited smiles from everyone who saw them. More importantly, they also solicited cries of "Where'd you get them?" and drove traffic straight back to the booth.

3. Taking The Mountain To Mohammed

Speaking about giveaways, some people are still shy to plunk their hand in your booth's fishbowl for a chocolate or fridge magnet. Don't wait for traffic, go to where the traffic is and hand out your stuff. Wait for people in elevators, hit 'em up in line at snack booths, or hang around for them in the washroom. Radical, yes. Effective, also yes.

4. Hidden Agendas

Most conferences are like big boxing matches—there are a couple of headliners, and a whole lot of undercard. Rather than try to sell the less-than-famous speakers, hide them instead. Describe them, and their topics of discussion, wildly and cryptically and reveal the name (and face) behind the hype only when they take to the mic at the podium or table. Yes, they may still be unknown, but the proper intro and walk-on will set the stage a whole lot better for them ... and for your audience.

5. Mismanage Expectations

Yes, the meeting may be called for Conference Room B, but it doesn't have to stay there. Like the late Andy Kaufman did when he took his entire Carnegie Hall audience out for milk and cookies, start at point A, but take your attendees somewhere obtuse and/or exotic. Or better still, start them off somewhere different. Set up chairs in a pedestrian mall, in a bookstore, coffee shop, or clothing boutique. Sorry Mr. McLuhan, but the location may be the message.

6. Break The Dress Code

Clothes make the man. And the woman. And the meeting. Customize your meeting by costumizing it. Unveil your road map in a formal, black-tie setting. Call a pajama party to discuss the 24/7 nature of modern communications. Break out the '60s-wear for a keynote from an industry old-timer. Like Halloween, half the fun will be seeing what the other folks will be wearing. Instant buzz.

7. Power Pointers

Give an underworked actor (which describes most of them) a break—hire them to act out your speech's salient, important points. Improv comedians will provide you with something far more memorable than PowerPoint.

These are just starting blocks. The end results depend on your imagination, risk tolerance, and sense of adventure. But no matter what tactic you choose, the goal of any surprise is to generate what I call "Euphoric Shock," that moment that expands the boundaries of delightful extremes and is the difference between "Holy Jeez!" and "Who Cares?"

And trust me on this, whatever business you may be in, I guarantee it'll work better with a "Holy Jeez!"

How To Pow!--Ignore The Consensus (Theory 24)

Was asked a provocative interview question by the shinin' bright Paul Williams of The Idea Sandbox. 

As much as I dug his question, I dug my answer to it even more.  Hope you will, too.

Q) So... how do you really know if what you're doing is 'Surprising' or Pow-worthy? Many companies think their services or products or marketing is awesome... when it's really humdrum. Is there a b.s. rule-of-thumb you can offer?

A) There's an easy barometer: Ignore the consensus. 

Here's what I mean:  If the proposed idea--any one!--is universally adopted and admired within your company, you know it's not just humdrum, but a loser.  Surprising ideas shock, challenge and enrage the public, but usually start their "dirty work" inside company walls.

That said, you know you've got something good when your own colleagues get pissed off at it, bark "I won't put my name on that!" or, better yet, threaten to quit because of it.  Every time I see a great Surprising marketing move, I say to myself "I wonder who quit or got fired over that one?"

Got A Minute?

You're uber-passionate about a subject; in my case, Surprise.

You walk the talk by incorporating it into your business and personal life incessantly

You write a blog for three years, and deftly spin that blog into a book.

And you hope that some of it cuts through, rubs off, makes a difference.

And then you get an email from a kindred spirit named Jeremy Epstein, who never stops marketing, and who wants to set up as time to talk with you.  The email states:

I’m driving to/from NYC on Thurs- 4/23 (live in DC) and always schedule calls along the way.  Would either of these slots work for you (EST)?:

8.11am-8.39am (early bird option)
9.37pm-9.58pm (night owl option)

Jeremy doesn't just "get it" (see the French Deli post that I suspect influenced his rather off-beat meeting times), but he uses it.  And he brands it, as well.  What a difference a minute makes, indeed.

Thus he cuts through the clutter of my schedule, and proves to be time well spent.  All 26 minutes and 32 seconds of it.

Well done, Jeremy.

I'll See You At Home

A favorite Pow! alumnus, Jeff Gruia of the Seeqa Eyeglass empire, is applying the "Taking Things Out Of Context" Surprise Marketing tactic to drive his business forward in tough times. 
 
Instead of waiting for customers to seek out  his high-end reading glasses in boutiques and upscale department stores, he's "taking the mountain to Mohammed" so to speak by selling his wares in home parties. 

Previously the domain of lesser-cost products from folks like Avon, Amway, Tupperware or a myriad of adult-oriented fashion and uh..."accessories," the advent of Botox parties and gatherings of gold-sellers has moved the price point up a notch, opening the doors to people like Jeff and his colorful frames and lenses.

Sounds obtuse, but that's the point in generating Surprise.  A new reason to get together coupled with a real-time social feedback look (i.e. "Those look great on you!" etc.) has made Jeff's latest risk a winner.

You can book your own reading glass party by calling Jeff at 1-877-448-8898...and as a little bonus, you can read up on him in this excerpt from my Pow! book below:

Jeff is the head of Seeqa International, an eyewear manufacturer which specializes in upscale fashion reading glasses and reader frames.  One day last year, from out of the blue, he called me (perhaps knowledgeable of my obsession with sunglasses) and asked for help with this problem.

“I watch shows like CSI and Law & Order all the time, and I always see my competitors’ frames on their characters,” Jeff complained.  “Is there a way I can get my glasses onto the people on these shows?”

“Sure,” I said.  “I can turn you onto a product placement consultant.  They’ll charge you about $100,000 and ask for an equivalent amount in product samples.  Let’s say they do their job really well—your frames and glasses will be seen all over the primetime players you covet.

“However, you’ll still be faced with the real problem,” I continued.  “Nobody would know that they’re yours.  In fact, if you started this call by telling me that the glasses I see on these shows right now are yours, I’d probably believe you.  I wouldn’t know the difference.”

Despite their color and unique designs, Seeqa glasses are rather undistinguishable from the competition.  And at $100 or so a pair, they are in the high-end of non-prescription readers, thus an easy mark for cannibalization by lower-priced, discount-store copycats.  The problem wasn’t getting them on TV screen; the problem was getting them on the radar screen.

So as a public service to a really nice guy, we spent some time “deconstructing” his true problem.  We looked at price, sourcing issues, lens power, fit, packaging, placement at the retail level (they’ve cracked some major names, like Neiman-Marcus and Saks), before finally being blinded by the shiny object: 

Why people wear them.

“Obviously, reading glasses are worn to read, but to read what?” I asked Jeff. 

At first, he didn’t get it, but then we started to list what people read with his—or any—glasses.  Summer “beach novels.”  Financial statements.  Music.  Love letters.  Blogs.  BlackBerries or cellphones.  Books on Surprise marketing. 

That “what” instead of “why” was the piece of the puzzle to concentrate on.  Instead of just being another purveyor of “fashion eyewear,” Seeqa could develop a line of “Lifestyle Eyewear.”  I’m sure you’re already picturing the different frames that could make “Business Glasses” or “Love Lenses” or “Mobile Eyes” stand out in the marketplace, and give rise to new designs in each category every year.

Then all Jeff would have to do is wait as the folks from Jerry Bruckheimer Productions and Dick Wolf Productions, producers of CSI and Law & Order respectively, call him for glasses for their shows.

Scratch This--We Become The Ad

Two, two, two Surprise-marketing tactics in one--Wear Virgin Contact Lenses and Take Things Out of Context--come together in the brilliant, kinda creepy, but ultimately effective ad for Frontline Flea & Tick Spray from the Jakarta, Indonesia branch of Saatchi & Saatchi.

This massive floor sticker in a Jakarta mall makes us humans part of the ad itself, and while interesting from ground level, the perspective takes on a certain power and majesty when seen from levels above. (Major props to Contessa Trujillo for this one.)

This is more than an ad; it's an interactive "attraction" that sends tourists and locals alike scurrying up escalators and elevators to take pictures, and most importantly, share them. In other words, you scratch my back...

Popcorn Soup

The decor was sharp and simple.  The food was wonderful.  Wine list was adventurous.

But the review said: "The focus at Kitchenette is on playfulness."  (Kitchenette is a new restaurant I tried this past week.)

Here's what it meant, and here's what people talked about:

The fact that the Butternut Squash Soup was served with a flurry of popcorn on top, with a small retro-cinema refill box on the side.

It's one of the four key theories in creating Surprise--Little Things Mean a Lot.  It's also one of the Nine Tactics--Take Things Out of Context.

A little unexpected merging of two dichotomous items, soup and popcorn,can be the catalyst to a lot of talk, buzz and "I gotta try it"s.  Gotta go back there with a camera to show ya...

Meanwhile, what little things are YOU doing to Surprise, delight and inspire your customers?

Preaching Surprise: It Ain't Just Me

This from THE authority on word-of-mouth marketing, Andy Sernovitz:

Talk To Me: iPod Shuffle Demonstrates Difference Between Wow! and POW!

The launch of Apple's new iPod shuffle gives us a textbook example of the difference between Wow! and Pow!

Wow! is impressive, but expected.  It moves incrementally. It takes you past a standard already set.

Pow! is also impressive, but totally UN-expected.  It moves in leaps and bounds, sometimes in quantum leaps and bounds.  It smacks you about the head, since you never saw it coming. 

So in terms of the new shuffle, the Wow! is that it's now even smaller.  Here's the incremental, expected process: 

• The first one was small. 
  
• The second one was smaller. 
  
• The third one, well...it wasn't gonna get bigger, right?

The Pow! though, is that the teeny weeny thing TALKS. 

THAT's the Surprise.  That's the "Holy Jeez!"  That's what gets the blogosphere and the tweeters buzzing.

Next time around, the iPod Shuffle Wow! will be that it talks to you with celebrity voices, or in foreign accents, or something expected and incremental like that.

The Pow! may be that it'll be invisible.

Much Ado About Nothing

Radiohead did it about a year-and-a-half ago, Alfalfa and the rest of the Little Rascals did it seven decades ago, and now, the Little Bay Restaurant in London is doing it...and reaping the benefits of Pow! on an international basis.

The "it" is a simple attention-generating device, allowing customers to "pay what they want" for a product or service, which is what Little Bay's owner Peter Ilic is offering his customers for the rest of the month (see pix of the tell-tale sign and receipt).  There are a number of factors at work here that see the ploy generating an exponential amount of buzz all over the world:

• Timing is impeccable; the story is tailor-made for recessionary days
• The offer is concrete, easy to explain and understand
• The offer comes from a high-end eatery; Little Bay is no greasy spoon, with a menu that features such epicurean delights as foie gras, smoked salmon, caviar and filet steak (not to mention live opera as in-house entertainment)

This may cost Ilic a few thousand pounds, but he's already made it up in spades with the amount of coverage he's earned (and I use that term with the utmost of respect). 

When March rolls around and the price tags once again appear on the menu, he'll be back in business big time. 

Same thing goes for Denny's, who rolled out a free Grand Slam breakfast for everyone in America last week after its Super Bowl ad (crummy ad; exquisite Pow! offer).  Cost them $5 million, with more than half of that spent on the ad alone.  Return? $50 million worth of coverage, and a whole slew of new customers, or at least new customer attitudes (my younger son Hayes stood in line for a couple of hours in Idaho waiting for his Grand Slam and had a blast; it was live social networking where everyone was talking Denny's).

Yeah, times are tough.  But as one of the four major Surprise Marketing Theories espouses: Big Balls Beat Big Budgets.  The disproportionate results of these two very different restaurants demonstrates that to the risky go the spoils of victory.

Steve Jobs Adds A New Season To The Calendar

What a great way to start a week--magna-vindication coming from perhaps the king of Surprise Marketing, Steve Jobs.

Such is not the thinking merely of those here at Surprise Central, but of Forbes Magazine's very prolific Brian Caufield.  In a piece entitled Steve Jobs' Greatest Surprises, Caulfield lays down these bons mots:

"Mark your calendars. Thanks to Steve Jobs, January has become the season of surprises for the technology industry.

"What's next? Nobody knows. That's what makes Apple so dangerous. The only certainty: Apple will surprise us with something during the first full week of January at MacWorld in San Francisco. Anything is possible. That's in large part because Apple has been so unpredictable over the past decade.

"Even the widely anticipated iPhone was a surprise. While reporters had teased out the new product's name, few guessed that Apple would introduce a touch-screen phone that didn't sport any buttons."

Caufield goes on to present a fascinating slide show of Jobs' Greatest Pow! Moments (well, he doesn't call it exactly that...but all FOPs know what I mean). Check it out here.

So, the lesson once again:

• Any one Surprise doesn't last. 
• TRUE Surprise requires a continuum;
• a shocking of the system again and again and again. 
• It needs a constant discovery of a new extreme.

And NOBODY seems to do it better than Steve Jobs.

But someone does it almost as good. 

And that someone will be bestowed with the title of Surprise Marketer of the Year for 2008.

The winner revealed right here on Friday.

Virgin Kleenex--Tissues as an Emotional Crutch

Okay, there's a serious message coming, but I'll start this post off rather sophomorically by projecting myself back to the hallways of Sir Winston Churchill High, where Kleenex and other tissues were known by the male population of the school as "snot-rags." 

That was the amount of respect we gave these squares of delicate paper.  They were there to do a job, usually a most unpleasant one, and then unceremoniously tossed away.  My crude-ish high school label aside, I suspect your feelings about the product weren't much different than ours. 

Cut to last week's post about Knorr selling soup as colors, to the Pow!-generating tactic of Wearing Virgin Contact Lenses (the ability to look at something familiar as if you've never seen it before)...and maybe you'll find yourself smiling at Kleenex's new ad campaign, which sees it positioned as an emotional crutch.

I'm trying to track down the genesis of the idea, but one of its defining moments had to come, perhaps as the ultimate coincidence, in the late Randy Pausch's best-selling memoir "The Last Lecture," where he describes the moment of learning of his terminal diagnosis this way:

"I had just learned that I would soon die, and in my inability to stop being rationally focused, I found myself thinking: 'Shouldn't a room like this, at a time like this, have a box of Kleenex? Wow, that's just a glaring operational flaw'."

This ain't about wiping away bodily fluids any more; the "Let It Out" campaign tugs at the heartstrings and shows Kleenex to be an accessory to the more "touchy-feely" moments of our lives, both good and bad.  This from the Kleenex site:

"Have you ever laughed until you cried?
Had a tear-filled hello or goodbye?
It's times like these when we just have to let it out™ — because it helps us feel better.
The Kleenex® brand invites you to let it out™ on this site."

That's just the beginning.  A couple of clicks and you're on a page where you can "Experience The Release" of catalysts like Laugh, Cry, Love, Sing, Joy, Stuff, Scream and Blow (which is more about exploding than it is about expelling mucous from your nose).  What's more, the company also lets you customize your own box to fit the occasions where you may act out one of the aforementioned catalysts.

Off-beat?  Of course, but something's gotta be done for an iconic brand that not only has to overcome the genericization of its brand name, but a 5.9% sales decrease over the past year.

All this said, I am truly touched that a brand so massive is heeding the advice of Surprise Central.

I think I'm gonna cry...

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.

Enough is Enough is Enough is...

Been spending a lot of my diminishing reading time reading up on design.  Not only am I an aesthetic whore, but I feel that there's a lot to learn in dealing with people in a personal and/or business sense by understanding how to deal with them in a physical sense.

So here's what I've learned lately: as a backlash to the assault-our-senses, stuff-it-all-in clutter that seems to permeate much of today's consumer goods (particularly in my field of mobile communications), a "less is more" school of thought is starting to emerge in product design.

But that ain't the answer.  This quote, from design deity Milton Glaser,(visual maestro behind the I Love New York image amongst other cultural iconography) is:

"Less isn't more;
just enough is more."

I, uh, couldn't agree more.  Particularly in creating Surprise.  For what is Surprise if not the design of an experience?  Overdo it and you turn people off; under-do it and you leave 'em nonplussed and yawning. 

"Just enough" isn't a compromise when it comes to designing Surprise or products.  It's the optimum sweet spot that delivers the unexpected but leaves 'em wanting--aw, here we go again!--more.

Something Stupid

I love stats.  Maybe it's because of my deep-rooted passion for sports and showbiz (I used to read Billboard and Variety charts like Moses read the 10 Commandments), but I can't get enough of data, and the Talmudic-like analysis of it.

Data generation and its crunching is the responsibility of a group called "Business Intelligence" (B.I.) at Airborne, and is the spawning ground of much Surprise (sparking multi-voiced choruses of "Hmmmmm," "I Didn't Know That," and the classic Surprise battle-cry, "Well, I Never"). 

But I got to thinking at a recent R&D meeting that while B.I. allows us to adjust to What Was or What Is, planning What Will Be is a different story...thus needs a different impetus. 

This is why I plan to lead a "Business Stupidity" group at Airborne.  By twisting the logical,  looking at the world through prism-lensed glasses, or--as my mentor Roger Von Oech would put it--"playing the fool," we can come up with the type of perspective that will put the Pow! into our future product development.  Thinking of the "what can't be" is an ideal tool for tomorrow's tech applications, wouldn't you say?

This skewed vantage point and devil-may-care attitude is a fun and effortless way to come up with Surprise for any business.  If indeed the whole point of Surprise is to shock the system, you ain't necessarily do it by being intelligent.  Some of the world's great Surprises have come from going so far and ridiculously against the grain that the obvious result is sure failure.  Until it succeeds. (Then watch B.I.'s data points shoot through the spreadsheet!)

And will wonders never cease?  Just check out the serendipitous acronym to the Business Stupidity group:

B.S.

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? 

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.