If you’re among those who watched the Academy Awards, or at least the news clip featured on the awards telecast, I wonder – what would you consider its most arresting moment? Most viewers, I believe, would say the sequence in which Sasha Baron Cohen pours what he says are the ashes of the dead North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il on Ryan Seacrest. This made me think of what motivated some recent unusual behavior on my part, and why every contemporary company needs a more novel and attention-grabbing way of promoting itself or getting its message out (and despite what you may or may not think of Sasha Baron Cohen, he is a brilliant promoter).
Cohen, of course, is but one example of what I would characterize as the “made-you-look” phenomenon. Two other personalities whose exploits have caused me to watch events I normally wouldn’t view are Danica Patrick and Tim Tebow. The former prompted me to tune into the Daytona 500 just to see her her first start in the NASCAR Nationwide Series, and the latter got me watching the Denver Broncos to see for myself what all the “underdog comes out on top” hype was about.
What such attention-getting antics and notables make me realize is the importance of injecting an aura of fun, entertainment and excitement into our business endeavors – in other words, to transform them into something that transcends the outmoded idea of “business as usual” in order to successfully compete in today’s far more dynamic culture and environment.
My question to you, then, is: does your enterprise have something going for it that might potentially have a mesmerizing effect similar to that created by a Danica Patrick or a Tim Tebrow? And if you have found such a entertaining schtick, what are you doing to bring it to the attention of a wider audience? Might you try using it, for example, to “kick some ash?”
