Surpresaaa!

Viral marketing has become part of everyday vocabulary of many people. After all, almost all advertisers using this tool today. What some advertisers still have not realized is that for a virus to be effective, there must be emotional. People share their experiences with each other on the Internet and beyond. And this is much more intense when the subject involves sharing feelings like disgust, sadness, joy, fear and surprise.

Those feelings, definitely the surprise is what most helps to spread the news. Who does not remember the women eating chocolate in Paulista? A study by the Journal of Economic Psychology , examines what effect has this feeling about viral marketing and I'll use some stretches to help me explain better.

I'm surprised, but what is it?

Theorists say the surprise is a short phenomenon caused by an unexpected change in what you consider as being normal for their standards. Anything that causes a change that you perceive as an element of surprise.

To get an adequate representation of reality, people they check constantly if your standards are appropriate to environmental stimuli around them. However, this check is unconscious. Once the stimuli differ in their patterns, the surprise happens.

To be more direct, every time something runs than you're used to, you're surprised. And the effects are immediate surprise: more focus on the stimulus, increased awareness and greater retention in the memory for other stimuli. All this results in curiosity and exploratory behavior. Moreover, the excitement caused by the fact he was surprised intensifies his other experiences.

After the first impact evaluation comes: the surprise is good or bad? Feeling that comes after, joy or sorrow? No matter, it will be shared equally because whenever one is feeling well, we assume that will also be new to others.

Now that you know, I will spread!

In its day-to-day, all is normal, familiar. When you go to the bakery you have no reaction "high" or unexpected. Everything happens as you're used to. But that may change if we add an element of surprise there. If you find a cockroach in the middle of crisp toast bread, it will be quite a surprise and in less than an hour everyone you know will know. Was a negative feeling, but you did mouth-to-mouth to happen.

Like what happens to evil can happen to good, if you arrive at that bakery, and suddenly the owner gives you a pot of butter, you will feel rewarded. Will see an advantage in that and will spread the news the same way. The great thing then is to think in ways that promote good surprises the audience, adding value to their experience in unusual ways. Make them have good reactions and encourages them to publicize the brands, products and services. Means that one must understand how the normal patterns of your audience work.

Surprise the consumer may be useful in several ways. In the solo format, a viral, a video or even as a decoy to some other section of a site. The important thing is to understand every step of the interaction with the consumer to know which element of surprise is more appropriate. This mechanism can (and used) both in multimillion dollar campaigns ( Dark Knight , for example) as well as in smaller and regional campaigns. All it takes is the right to know that what was unexpected becomes trivial and unimportant to the audience, which translates into decrease in efficiency. That is, what is to become a new standard for people and surprise ceases to exist.