Surprise!!!

This weekend I was reading a Q&A with Andy Nulman from Airborne Entertainment (Montreal) who writes about "Pow!" marketing moments in his blog. The Q&A was published in the Sept 24th issue of Marketing  - for those who are inclined to see the whole article.

The question is "What is surprise marketing?"

The answer is "People are basically bored and immune to most marketing. There's so much sameness. So surprise marketing really is "How do we cut through that clutter?" It is that event, the effect, the moment that basically just shocks the system... It hits you to that point where your eyes widen, your mouth turns into an "O" and you say "Wow, I never expected this." And what happens, first of all, is it cuts through all the clutter and number two, it generates word of mouth: "God, you've got to see this, it's incredible, you're not going to believe what these guys did."

I'm saying "Of course!"

You could change his answer by inserting 'donors' instead of 'people'. I have recently talked with a number of colleagues on the agency side and on the charity side and we all realize - donors are getting bored. We are not surprising anyone. We've become complacent with the norm. We just to need to make our realistic target which is the same as last year and the year before.

We need to snap out of it. The first charities that have the cahones to forget about achieving the usual - and try doing something that will snap their donors heads in attention will be rewarded. No doubt. But I'm afraid it will take a lot of convincing and a lot of people willing to take a risk for that reward for it to happen.

Thoughts?