| How to Market Yourself in Your Underwear | | | | spied and examined." If you want to stand out from |
| "Ayieeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaa!!!!" | | | | the sales and marketing predictables make every |
| I thought the two startled businessmen were going | | | | contact a Broca surprise. |
| to leave a surprise in their shorts. They were | | | | Returning to Fisherman's Wharf the following year for |
| bushwhacked from behind the bush by bushwacky. | | | | another marketing lesson, a street performer was |
| The street crowd held their collective sides as they | | | | gracing the public with his guitar. His donations cup |
| split with laughter. | | | | runneth over. In haste he had taken a magic marker |
| One of the two best places in America to watch | | | | to a scrap of cardboard found behind a restaurant |
| street performers is at Fisherman's Wharf. The two | | | | and scribbled his message to position nearby: "Yes, |
| San Franciscans fell victim to the diminutive little man | | | | it's for beer." Truth in advertising surprises. |
| who had set up his small bush office on the sidewalk | | | | The other best place in America to see street |
| of the Embarcadero near Pier 39. Squatting behind it | | | | marketers is at Times Square in Manhattan, the |
| he would spy unsuspecting tourists walking towards | | | | island's tourist magnet. Returning to our hotel from |
| him and prepare for the pounce. After surviving your | | | | Penn Station we saw a crowd gathered at the |
| own scare, you'd move several strides down the | | | | corner across from the kiosk's neon sign proclaiming |
| walkway so as to not draw attention to him and | | | | "New York Police". We heard the laughter. Crowd? |
| watch and wait with glee for his next unwitting cast | | | | Laughter? People having fun? Times Square? July? |
| member to take center stage. Beside him his | | | | This must be something special. |
| donation cup was overflowing with tips from his | | | | We inched our way to the front of the gawkers. |
| formerly terrified but now amused audience. | | | | Playing his guitar and wearing his hat and boots was |
| I'm a student of marketing. And bushwhacking is a | | | | the Singing Cowboy of Times Square. His opened |
| marvelous technique in the appropriate environment: | | | | guitar case was producing money faster than the U.S. |
| well-known street performing area, tourists, people | | | | Mint. A marketing genius. His singing abilities sucked, |
| having fun. It was the unexpected technique in the | | | | and I don't think he really knew how to play that |
| expected environment that surprised you. A | | | | guitar. So how did he surprise Broca? Did I mention |
| technique you'd never forget. Ever. Something you'd | | | | that he was wearing his hat and cowboy boots? I |
| tell others about for a lifetime. We can all learn from | | | | did? And did I also mention that the only other thing |
| marketing geniuses like the bushwacky. | | | | he had on was his jockey underwear? A minimalist |
| Roy H. Williams, the Wizard of Ads, says the focus | | | | who knows how to market. I guess he goes |
| of your marketing is to "surprise Broca". French | | | | undercover when the snow falls. |
| surgeon and anthropologist Paul Broca, in 1861, was | | | | What do you do to get remembered in your |
| the first to identify the left hemisphere of the brain | | | | predictable business world? Does your marketing |
| as involved with speech production, in particular | | | | scream "Look at me! I'm just like everyone else." (Do |
| assessing the order of the words as they're used. | | | | you recall the actual car promoted in that last slick |
| Williams refers to Broca as "the theater critic of the | | | | television ad?) Do you numb with rote presentations? |
| imagination; the part of the human mind that | | | | Are you ignored with your uninspired voicemail leave |
| anticipates and ignores the predictable." Williams says | | | | behinds? Or do you do stand out by doing the |
| your goal in marketing is to surprise Broca with the | | | | unusual, the intriguing, and the fascinating? |
| unexpected so your message won't be ignored. | | | | New York City. Population nine million. I remember |
| "The common, the mundane, the average, the | | | | one. |
| predictable are ignored," says Williams, while "the | | | | What are you doing to surprise Broca so you'll be the |
| unusual, the intriguing, the fascinating are immediately | | | | one? |