Want people to remember something? Make it memorable. A professor brought in a guest lecturer. He immediately took off the hazmat suit he was wearing, turned on some music and proceeded to strip. He ended up stopping when he got down to his scanty gold booty shorts. He then walked out of the room. The professor, who had not expected him to go quite so far, turned to her students and asked them what they remembered. Unanimously they all said the gold booty shorts. OK, she reminded them, if you want something to be memorable, make it surprising and unusual.
This was just brought home to me recently while I was attending a fun magic convention in Texas. I’m watching a contest of close-up magicians, and out came a man who announced he was going to do a standard magician’s routine, cups and balls. The balls move mysteriously back and forth between the cups and while it’s a nice routine, it’s been around forever. And then he shocked everyone by bringing out these big, clumsy plastic pincers, the kind of thing one uses if you drop something and need help picking it up. Using these things would make it almost impossible to do a magic routine with small cups and balls, and yet he did. The audience was so surprised he ended up getting a standing ovation and won people’s choice. All because it was unusual and not what was expected.
A reminder, when you want anyone to remember anything—whether you’re working with employees and want them to remember a specific power point presentation or customers you want to be impressed with a new product or service, the more unusual and memorable, the more effective you’ll be.
