Steal this video trick – "Pattern Interrupt"

Sigh…

I get asked to look at a lot of Video Marketing, um…“attempts”. And I say “attempts” with sincere admiration and love for the “attempt-ee” because, guess what?

Even just plain old vanilla-type Video requires skillz.

Good Video actually requires Mad Skillz.

And then… there’s a whole different type of video:

The kind of Video that makes money.

And that, dear friend, requires Talent. (Which can be stolen, BTW – more on that below)

This is not about “technical” talent either. 10 years ago, video production required “Engineer-Level” skills and a studio full of rack-mounted gear costing $250k.

These days, you can hit home runs with a Flip Cam, Camtasia, and iMovie. Seriously.

No. No No - It’s not about your gear or your “geek”. It never was. It’s about a talent for ENGAGING your viewer.

And the trick that ends up looking like talent is called “Pattern Interrupt” – use this trick correctly, and your viewing prospects will obey your call-to-action commands. They’ll sniff your kool-aid and wrap their fingers around its plastic cup. And they might even drink deeply of your propaganda.

Heh. Speaking of kool-aid…

Here’s how this works:

Putting on my “Captain Obvious” fez for a moment, you know as well as I do that your marketing message has to fight cage-match-style combat just to get a prospect to notice you…

… but noticing your message DOES NOT even come close to guarantying ANY action from your prospect.

Pattern Interrupt, on the other hand, is (shhhh) pretty much THE MOST EFFECTIVE engagement-causing trick that I know.

Now, sprinkle a little Pattern Interrupt shizzle in your marketing videos (you are doing marketing videos, right?), and you can create a level of attention and focus on your message that is SIMPLY NOT POSSIBLE any other way (at least now that blackmail has been outlawed).

Pattern Interrupt – Distant Cousin to “Exceed Expectations” but with Moxie.

You’ve heard this phrase, “Expect the Unexpected” right?

Guess what?

NO ONE DOES THAT– especially your prospect. They expect you to over-head swing a “charm mallet” to the soft tissue of their “buying brain” hoping that the impact causes money to fly out of their wallet into your off-shore bank account(s).

Some knuckleheads call it “Selling”. Any form of selling is expected by your viewing prospect. And the act of “Selling” causes resistance – Even though people love to buy!

No one said the world was fair.

Hard Selling in video is not really selling at all. People are so used to receiving a different form of communication while watching moving pictures (like entertainment or information or the weather, for example) that hard selling with video is reacted to like it’s a form of coercion. Good Luck with that.

Your job is to create the unexpected in your video. You need to defy expectations – not exceed them.

Sometimes, (this is ninja) you need to allow your viewing prospects to be SO COMPLETELY SURE that they are about to see something that they’ve ALREADY seen before that when they are exposed to YOUR unexpected video, it’s like yanking the carpet clean out from underneath them – Three Stooges Style. Knowing you should Zig when other’s Zag it a totally liberating experience, if I do say so myself.

The very first essential step is understanding what your prospects expect you to do, then doing something COMPLETELY different. Honestly, it IS that easy.

98% of all marketing messages are essentially the same; they have the same strategies, same tactics, and the same goal.

Causing your marketing videos to be part of that rarified 2% elite moneymakers and sales-closers is a simple matter of being rebellious.

Obvious Examples of Rebellious Marketing:

StomperNet

In 2006, the Internet Marketing world was accustomed to scratchy, poorly produced and ugly looking video that you got ONLY AFTER you opted in to a marketing list through a squeeze page.

The StomperNet Launch offered a different quality of video that was released “In the clear” – no opt-in required.

That “Interrupted the Pattern” of expectations in the conventional Internet marketing space at that time.

The Result? Heh.

Geico Insurance

In 2004 Geico Insurance introduced “The Cave Man” characters in their car insurance advertising. The slogan was “So Easy, a Cave Man can do it”. If that wasn’t Pattern Interrupt enough, the Cave Men in the commercial actually got OFFENDED by that slogan.

The Result: This campaign was so successful, that it represents one of the ONLY television ad campaign that SPUN OFF AN ENTIRE SIT-COM.

Apple Computer

The Macintosh 1984 TV Commercial – Iconic, to be sure, this commercial featured about every top-notch production value and cinematography trick in the book.

But not a SINGLE image of the Apple Macintosh.

The Result? Apple is the 4^th largest computer manufacturer in the world.

And then there’s the IPod, and IPhone, and and and… it’s not Vista.

Mentos Mints

“Do Do Do Do – Do Do…DoWAHHHHH”

Seriously – hum that to yourself. It will be in your head until you hear something worse, like a Milli Vanilli song. Girl…you KNOW it’s true… ooh ooh..

Sorry.

The Result?

While YOU might not be tempted to bleat out “The FRESH Maker” except while blotto at Techno Rave Parties…this candy company has a Global presence – and it was Pattern Interrupt Marketing in their videos that caused it to happen — even if the Goober-Factor was immeasurably high by today’s scientific standards.

Frank Kern Mass Control 2.0 Launch

I watched Frank’s video marketing pre-launch for Mass Control 2.0closely.

In addition to compelling How-To Content, the bulk of his videos also featured Cars, Surfboards, Walks on the Beach, Video Games, and Guitars. It probably “sold to the viewer” less than any Marketing Product Launch since – meaning LOW buying resistance.

The Result? The Pattern Interrupt of Life-Style Goal Manifestation instead of hard selling displayed in these videos created the largest launch in 2009.

You are probably starting to see the “Pattern” of Pattern Interrupt:

1 – Deliver the Unexpected – in your Marketing, and you Offers. Use your Marketing VIDEOS to drive it home.

2 - I think it’s all about offering Unexpected CONTEXT – that’s where the HOOK in your message introduction is only a DISTANT cousin to the actual topic or subject of your product.

3 – I have recently coined the phrase (Meaning stolen it from someone whose name I cannot remember anymore) “Proximity Marketing”.

Proximity Marketing allows you to associate your marketing messages with concepts that are COOL, Humors, Fun, (Horrifyingly) Annoying or Emotional.

First you decide to Pattern Interrupt. Then, you Proximity Market – meaning you cuddle up to a concept or cultural issue or industry staple that your prospects can identify with.

Here are a couple of techniques to chew on:

Shock and Awe (™ Donald Rumsfeld and Frank Kern (no offense Frank)

Shock and Awe challenges you to shatter the anticipated desired results or goal expectations of your prospect when they think about using your product – by showing User Success at a level that they could not imagine.

This is NOT the easiest Pattern Interrupt to pull off – because frankly, there’s nothing new under the sun and man-o-man are we a jaded society or what?. But what you might try is “The Paradigm Shift” – add something to your product’s feature set or service set that just doesn’t exist from your competitors.

• Remember the ATM machine? 24-Hour access to money? That’s crazy talk!

• Enterprise Car Rental Service – “We’ll Pick You Up?” INSANITY!

• Lose 20 Pounds in 20 Days? Without amputation?

• We’ll sell your house for Asking Price GUARANTEED?

Essentially, Shock and Awe means your product is WAY better than everyone else’s. Or, at least you show your prospect how to USE it to that result.

Now, how about an easier “Pattern Interrupt” for your video marketing?

Parody

Parody is among the easiest and most consistently effective ways to Pattern Interrupt.

Why? It requires very little innovation (you’re making a parody of something already well known) and humor (especially the self-effacing kind) ALWAYS gets attention.

Might I give proper acknowledgment (i.e. Mad Props) to Gabe and Max’s Internet Thing of YouTube fame? Genius. Parody of Internet Marketing.

How about Hulu? Alec Baldwin as a Brain Slurping Alien? Beautiful!

Do you know the slogan for Virgin Airlines? “Considerably More Experience than our name would suggest…”

You stop, you read, you smile…

…you REMEMBER.

Parody…

Pattern Interrupt….

Ask yourself – what do you think your prospect is expecting when they hit the play button on your internet marketing video?

Figure that out – then do something ELSE.

It does not have to be contrarian. It does not have to be left field. It does not have to be explicit…

It just needs to be a little…unexpected.

This marketing video (well, it’s not even a marketing video) totally DEFINES Pattern Interrupt.

(UPDATE: This video is not currently available – we're working to find a new link -ed.)

It’s got Parody, seasoned with some Shock and Awe. But what I think it does the most brilliantly is the Set-Up and SPIKE (knock down).

The open of the video behaves EXACTLY like a “Block Buster” campaign, only there’s just something a little…TOO Big about it.

While you’re watching the first minute or so, you should get a sense of the video “Taking itself TOO seriously”.

That, my friend, is the Set-Up.

Then, there’s the SPIKE – the knock down is the Pattern Interrupt, and it’s what keeps you watching.

Its what switches your brain from

“RED ALERT – Incoming Sales Pitch – RAISE the SHIELDS”

to

“Heh, good for them! Now, what’s this all about…”

Imagine “Myth busters” meets “The Real World”.

Yeah, watch this video, and then opt-in to see the next one – where the next Pattern Interrupt is what I call “The Discovery Channel” technique.

(UPDATE: This video is not currently available – we're working to find a new link -ed.)

Let me know what you think of the video here on the blog.

Keep on Stomping!

Andy

P.S. I stole the term Pattern Interrupt from Frank Kern. He wasn’t using it today.

P.P.S. I’m a little miffed by the high level of creativity in this video. Yep - The Video Gauntlet has been thrown down. StomperNet will answer with Vigor. Oh Yes. We will answer.

(UPDATE: This video is not currently available – we're working to find a new link -ed.)

Game on.