Al: 
Ben:
Surprise!
Posted September 16th, 2010 by Ben Fox. 1 Comment
People like surprises.
Doesn’t your partner love it when you book that surprise getaway? Isn’t it great when the underdog knocks out one of the big boys in the FA cup? Aren’t surprise parties always the best?
We all love a good surprise.
There’s a reason for this. Think about it.
Every day you wake to the same alarm going off at the same time, you drive to work on the same road, get stuck in the same traffic and then park in the same space before tackling 8 hours worth of the same challenges thrown up by the same job you’ve had for X years.
In the world of marketing the same thing occurs – think about how we engage with advertising. Our personal radars, our Skyplus and even our spam filters are finely tuned to identify potential marketing messages and ensure we avoid them like the plague.
So, in other words, a marketing message that is not surprising, or funny, or shocking or engaging will not be noticed, or registered, or remembered, or acted upon or forwarded on.
With audiences being subjected to a multitude of marketing messages every minute of every day, you have got to do and give more.
You have to captivate and engage and keep your audience interested.
You have got to build a relationship so that one day a member of your audience thinks, ‘I want what they’ve got’.
With so much choice out there you’ve got to build a relationship with your audience –and throw in a few surprises too.
BOO!
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That’s very true. Just look at Susan Boyle’s first audition for one of the best examples ever. Is she a good singer – sure, but the thing that made her an instant sensation was the surprise. The audience expected her to be one of the hopeless deluded losers that they put on the stage now and again for everyone to laugh at, and they were laughing. Then she sang, and the shock was palpable. If she had been 22 and moderately pretty she could have slipped by almost unnoticed.