The essential “Surprise!” ingredient in marketing campaigns
Posted by Frances van den Berg on 21 Jan 2009 | Tagged as: Common SEO Topics
The most serious, humorless adults can be inspired with child-like enthusiasm by pleasant surprises. Surprise freebies given out at a show or lucky dips at a petrol station turn an ordinary day into Christmas for the consumer. Last week, after a discussion on trust, I touched on the how successful surprise can be to shake computer zombies out of their comfort zones and get people to take note and I would like to continue in the same vein. In Dosh Dosh’s article “How ‘Surprise’ Helps Word-of-Mouth and Viral Marketing“, Maki, summarises the surprise element perfectly: “Surprise’s effects are immediate: A stronger focus of attention on the stimulus, a heightened consciousness, better retention of memory at the expense of other stimuli. All of which eventually result in curiosity and exploratory behavior”.
It’s not only surprise for a new product or exceptional service; a cleverly designed marketing campaign also gives rise to immediate surprise. Burger King is a prime example of a company that used the surprise element in viral marketing with their ‘trade your friends for a burger’ campaign on facebook. Here the surprise was not necessarily good but people woke up and spoke about it. Surprise is one of the more basic human emotions and is integrated into every facet of our lives. Sports depend on it; everyone knows how boring it becomes when one team always wins because the win loses its kick (excuse the pun). Similarly, in entertainment people will laugh and cry at the unexpected. If you start churning out the same stuff, it’s like listening to a broken record; people start to tune it out.
It is becoming ever harder to surprise people these days. I spoke about consumers being bombarded by aggressive marketing campaigns, but they are also bombarded by clever marketing campaigns, which leave the aforementioned computer zombies feeling like they’ve ‘seen it all before’. Having said that, Burger King’s campaign was definitely the first time I’ve encounter the concept of exchanging your friend for a burger. It’s quite quirky, which definitely appeals to me. Viral campaigns are short term and so it’s easy to maintain the surprise element. If you have repeated consistent campaigns, even with original content, it is a lot harder to keep surprising people. Luckily, by definition viral campaigns take people by surprise, but it’s important to keep the content and added incentives new, interesting and surprising, and what is new, interesting and surprising today is dull and one dimensional tomorrow.
