Pow! Right Between the Eyes: Profiting from the Power of Surprise

by Andy Nulman

Pow! Radical new methods for reaching jaded, cynical consumers Put simply, when it comes to your business, your new idea, even yourself, this book can be the difference between a "Who cares?" and a "Holy cow!" Business, both big and small, is in desperate need of new ways to inspire bored and cynical consumers who have grown weary of the same old song and dance. In today’s information economy, it doesn’t matter how many people you reach, but how much attention they pay. And the best way to get attention is with the powerful, but largely misunderstood, element of surprise. Pow! Enter Andy Nulman with the art of surprise marketing. An explosive new outlook, surprise marketing solidifies the bond between you and your customers like nothing else, and keeps them coming back for more by providing a continuous flow of what they never expected. Pow! Right Between the Eyes reveals the secrets, theories, and tactics of surprise marketing, and wields outrageous real-world examples (and even more outrageous tools like "The Lubricant to Yes" and "Euphoric Shock") to help expand the boundaries of the extreme and create a bigger bang for bigger profits. On his quest to unlock the secret of why some things knock your socks off and others put you to sleep, Nulman shares insights from director Alfred Hitchcock, designer Philippe Starck, playwright David Mamet, Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane, Harvard psychologists, songwriters, bloggers, and even the inventor of Pirate Booty snack chips. And he shows how today’s smartest companies are winning big with surprises stories • How Oprah’s shocking announcement that "Everybody gets a car!" sent her Web site traffic up 800% and helped the Pontiac G6 outsell its competitors by 20% • How Target earns $7 billion a year in free publicity with stunts like a floating temporary store in New York’s Hudson River or putting on a vertical fashion show where acrobat models walked down the side of Rockefeller Center • How Bear Naked Granola reversed the trick-or-treat tradition by sending costumed street teams door-to-door to give away granola samples on Halloween Andy Nulman is a wildly-successful businessman and even wilder public speaker who first learned the power of surprise working with Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, Jim Carrey, and many other comedians as the cofounder and CEO of the Just For Laughs Festival, the world’s largest comedy event. His book shares hilarious and effective surprise promotions that he himself dreamed up for the event and in his current position as cofounder, President, and CMO of Airborne Mobile, which brings brands like Maxim , Family Guy , and the NFL to the mobile media world. Don’t forget to read the book’s two forewords by the legendary John Cleese and CBS Late Late Show host Craig Ferguson. Surprising choices for a business book? Well…what did you expect?

Genres: Business, Communication

240 pages, Hardcover

Published February 24, 2009

Reviews

[Garrett Cook]

My knowledge of marketing can best be illustrated by a scene from the Simpsons. Homer needs to do marketing for something. He begins by reading a book on Advanced Marketing. It ends up in the trash. He then picks up a book on intermediate marketing. It ends up in the trash. Next, Marketing for Dummies fails to make the cut. Finally, Homer is seen pouring over the dictionary, looking up the word marketing. I've had similar experience with marketing books. This one, however was different. It starts with a foreword by John Cleese. A very fun foreword by John Cleese. Next Craig Ferguson talks about the author and I like what I'm hearing. Most of these books I look at, the intros are not engaging at all, the language is no fun and they come across as dry as a bone. And these people are going to tell me how to make myself a better product? Hardly. I don't think I can trust marketing lessons from somebody whose product is bad. This book is a good product and explains the principles of surprise and its application to marketing really well. It gave me a lot of food for thought and I think will be a huge amount of help in the long run. A great read and legitimately useful and thought-provoking.

[Du4]

Nulman must have written this book just for me. This guy's entire thesis is that to attain the best payoff for notice-generating marketing in today's information overload age, you have to Surprise people... and his methods are both hilarious and over the top.

It helps, I suppose, that Nulman comes from a comedy background. A lot of his tips, tactics, and philosophy in POW! use many of the trappings common to comedians. It makes for a fun and engaging treatise on The New, and how the marketing of Old is just plain done with. I anticipate getting a lot of mileage out of Nulman's suggested tactics and methods.

If there was one thing that I had to complain about it's how much Nulman talks about himself. Granted, a lot of what POW! is about deals with shameless self-promotion, and Nulman is certainly a guy who lives by what he preaches. But at times, his lessons sound more egotistical than helpful, and it may be necessary for certain readers who don't GET the art of The Surprise to filter a lot of Nulman's hyperbole.