A friend of mine recently got a Barnes and Noble Nook. While he was setting it up I asked him where it came from.
He told me it was from a raffle at a local networking event.
I was surprised that he had won. No one I know ever wins those things. I told him this.
"I knew I would win," he responded.
I was thrown by this response. He is usually cocky but this was a new level. I asked how he knew.
Here's what he told me:
I watched what the other people entering the raffle were doing with their papers. They would write on the paper then either crumple it up or fold it very small. Then they would drop it into the slot in the box.
So when it was my time to fill out the raffle slip I wrote on it and folded it very lightly. It was small enough to fit through the slot but would reopen once it was inside. That way when the person was shuffling through all of the paper there would be tons of little pieces and my big piece.
And I had a pretty good feeling my paper would get picked.
I thought this was brilliant. He saw what everyone else in the field was doing and flipped the system. Everyone else was being small so he decided to be big. He made his entry stick out with the same tools as everyone else. And it works.
That's advertising. A lot of the work in a category will be roughly the same. A lot of books will have ads that look and feel like ads in them. Things that tick all the boxes of prevailing logic.
But our job isn't to fit in, or to look the same as everyone else. Our job is making us and our clients stick out.
So the real risk is in doing the safe option. Folding the paper until it's small. But brilliant stuff, people and work that people talk about. Is the unfolded paper.
Sticking out isn't part of the job, it is the job.