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Weird Things Get Attention

Article by Chris Tregenza

You have something to sell, maybe a product, maybe a political message, maybe its yourself, but everyone is ignore you. In order to stand out of a crowd, things need to get a little bit weird.

Try This Now

Take a good look around and make a list of all the objects you can see that are blue. Take your time, there is no hurry.

Got your list? You’ve probably got between five and fifteen objects. Now shut your eyes and think of all the red things you saw when making the list. The weird thing is that you will be able to think of one or two objects but if look around now, you will see just as many red things as blue things.

The human brain is an amazing filter and will ignore anything it doesn’t consider important. This is why when looking for blue objects, you ignored the red. This is very useful for the brain as it can focus on the important thing but it is a nightmare for advertisers and sellers. Unless the customer is already looking for you, they are not going notice you. In order to beat human nature, weird things need to happen.

I Blame Saber-Toothed Tigers

Caveman Gog is walking through the forest back towards the cave. Its been a long, fruitless day hunting antelope and he is tired. Too busy worrying about how he will attract a mate if he can’t catch any food he doesn’t notice the tiger until its too late.

Gog’s brother, Zog, is also walking back through the jungle, empty handed. Suddenly he stops in his tracks, fully alert. His brain has just noticed a weird thing, something odd and out of place. A patch of shadow that isn’t right. Carefully he raises his spear and throws it into the shadow. A tiger stumbles out of the undergrowth, the spear in its neck, and it falls dead at Zog’s feet. That night Zog had a lot of fun showing off his new tiger skin rug to all the cavegirls.

Modern humans are descended from those cavemen who could spot the unusual because the unusual killed those who didn’t. We may live in a generally safe, hi-tech world but our brains are very similar to those of our cavemen ancestors. Our brains are tuned to pick up the unusual or weird things around us.

Try To Kill Your Customers

For your advert or product to stand out, you need to trigger the “Warning! Weird Thing Alert’ part of brain that allowed Zog to spot the tiger. I’m not suggesting that you dress up in a tiger suit and pounce on people as they take their lunch in the park but this is the effect you want. Your customer’s undivided attention.

The seller’s biggest enemy is not their competition but desensitization. This is the process that trains the brain to ignore things that were once new. If you walk into a room with a weird aroma it will seem overpowering at first but after five minutes in the room you will forget it entirely. This is desensitization and its happening all the time.

Drowning Not Waving

How many adverts have you seen today on TV, in the paper, on the internet? Hundreds probably. So many that we have become desensitized to anything that looks like an advert. Big companies can spend tens of millions of dollars coming up with striking visual images, quirky names and big stars to get our attention but how can the small guy do it? How can you trigger that ‘weird things’ part of the customer brain and still be run a serious business or get a important message across?

You don’t have to be zany or do weird things. The secret is to see what you have learnt to ignore. Start by looking at where you going to be. If you are shop, look at all the store fronts in the area. If you are planning an print advert, look at all the adverts in the magazine or paper. Make a list of what they have in common. Their shape, their layouts, the words, the fonts and colors they use. Now compare them all.

What you are looking for is not the differences but the similarities because this is the forest where a weird thing can stand out. You want to be a tiger in the forest, not a tree. If everyone else’s sign is square, use a round one. If other adverts have long product descriptions, keep yours to three words or less in a font 72 points high. Being different is the first step in making sale.

Attention Is Only The Start

Leaping out of trees whilst dressed in a tiger suit will get you attention but it won’t make you a sale unless you are selling tiger suits. How you get people’s attention has to fit with the product you are selling because it is just one ingredient in the recipe. But like adding mentos to diet coke, throwing a few weird things into the recipe can produce something special.

About the Author

Chris Tregenza runs websites on SEO, ADHD and weird things.