Confounded Expectations as a Marketing Tactic

Confounded Expectations as a Marketing Tactic

In late 2009, Cabel Sasser wandered into a cafe in Japan and ordered an orange juice. He thought it was a mistake on the cafe’s part when he received a drink called an “Appletizer” and a handful of strange candy. It was not a mistake. He had unwittingly patronized a business that boasted a unique concept: you get what the person before you ordered.

He blogged about his experience and now the Ogori cafe has fans all over the world due to it’s unusual approach to food service. This demonstrates the power of confounding expectations by violating social or institutional conventions. This tactic can be used to garner attention, prove a point or create a unique experience.

A couple of years ago, Burger King generated buzz by pretending to discontinue the Whopper sandwich, capturing the reactions of customers on film and using the footage in a series of ads. By confounding people’s expectations, they drew out stories about the role the Whopper played in people’s childhoods, the lengths they had gone to in order to get a Whopper, and what the sandwich meant to them. The campaign won the Grand Effie at the 2009 edition of the awards show.

The most recent example of this phenomenon came in the form of a campaign for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. In order to promote their new Europe Business Class, which ensures that travelers will have an empty seat beside them, the company launched an online video showing a man encroaching on the personal space of real people and documenting their reactions. The victims generally responded the same way: an annoyed glance followed by a move to another seat or standing area. In some cases, a protracted stare let the space invader know he had landed firmly on their bad side. The footage is a delight to watch and speaks to a real human truth – everybody likes having an empty seat next to them in a plane, train, or movie theater. It is an issue that is not often spoken about and almost never addressed by the businesses in control of the seating, which is why it is so refreshing and entertaining to watch the people in the video reacting to the space invader.

Creating a situation that contradicts social norms and expectations is a powerful way to make a point about a product or service. It is easy to talk about “product benefits” and equally easy to ignore such messages. This is how most advertising frames the selling proposition and therefore it is white noise to your audience. By orchestrating a situation that runs counter to expectations, consumers can see what they’re missing. Of equal importance is the ability of tactics like this to attract attention by drawing out interesting reactions from the people involved. Next time you are working on a concept for a new campaign, ask yourself: “What do people expect and how can we turn that on its head?”

Greg Steen, 02.24.2011