Bad joke. Equally as bad would've been Pow! Right Between The Legs.

But from Holland, the land of the very liberal, comes this very Surprising marketing stunt from Libresse, a global (and as of this stunt, extraterrestrial) feminine hygiene company. 

Those weren't raindrops that fell on the heads of beachgoers at six Dutch beaches a week ago, nor were they stray jellyfish, they were...uh, well, tampons on parachutes...all in a very targeted approach to remind the younger female set of the value of having one of these around at all times.

Interesting in a "hmmmmm" sort of way...but somehow, I don't think this would play at the boardrooms of P&G.  Or at Cape Cod. 

See the stunt in action on the YouTube clipo below.

And trust me, you don't need to speak Dutch to understand this one.

One of my great early Pow! stunts that has somehow got lost in the recesses of my memories was just unearthed during a bout of reminiscing with an old colleague, so what better time to share the story of Ray Romano and the golf balls (before I forget it once again)?

Ray was a young touring comic when he first did the festival, and unlike others who forgot we existed once they made it big, Ray stayed a friend of the fest, and agreed to host one of its prestigious Gala shows once he had hit the jackpot as the star of "Everyone Loves Raymond."

In addition to introducing ten comedians on the night's bill, Ray did some of his stand-up and a couple of sketches.  One that opened the second half (a trouble spot due to a tired audience coming back from intermission) involved his old golfing buddy Jimbo Skormowski (owner of the Comedyworks Club where Ray headlined often).

Ray is an ardent golfer (as is CBS sitcom-mate Kevin James), so the sketch involved Ray and Jimbo, in golfwear, coming on stage with clubs, setting up balls on an astroturf mat, and trading dopey golf jokes and stories while launching the balls into the audience.

At first the audience was horrified (no, not by the stories), but quickly realized by the arc of the balls' flight that they were plastic, "Whiffle" golf balls.  The patter continued, about 20 balls were hit and caught, and the relatively pedestrian piece ended to polite applause.

But that's when the fun REALLY began!

Before introducing the next act, Ray dropped the Pow! bomb by saying:

The place erupted.  Went nuts.

Everbody loved him even more, trust me.

Those who had balls (well, you know what I mean) realized that the cheap souvenir was actually a most golden ticket to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

And as for the other 2,280 people who didn't, they were warmed by the gesture, and were pumped up beyond belief for the show's second half.

So, the moral of the story: Surprise comes in many forms.  Keep those hands as open as your eyes...as Cheap Trick once sang, "you never know what you'll catch."

Yup, just got confirmation that the publishing conglomerate Hankyu Books (publishers of the renowned Town Guide Series and of course, the best-selling Yuga Yamato Memorial Book) have picked up the translation rights for Pow! in Japan, and are fast-tracking a release later this year.  Hmmm...I wonder how they'll translate "Holy Jeez!" into Japanese...

This is the second time a project of mine has been purchased by a Japanese entity (although I'm getting slightly less than Garner and I got when we sold Airborne to Cybird Enterprises), so all I can say now is

or, to be more polite,

or, better still,

Lots to talk about, particularly reflections on the death of a parent, but we'll save that until later.

For now, something a little more fun. 

Read this interview in a recent Brandweek, and loved the cheekiness of Yahoo's chief research scientist Duncan Watts.  Debunking marketing's beloved "Influencer Model," Watts rubs the magic lamp and evokes the all-important spirit of The Genie when he asked about how a consumer phenomenon (in this case, the Crocs line of shoes) spreads:

Finally...a concrete, and no-bullshit explanation of how hits happen!

Tyler has reason to be excited (aside from the obvious).  In a most moribund industry, this relatively tiny Kiwi airline has out-Virgined Virgin Air in (sorry!) cheekiness and has (sorry again) showed more staff spirit than Southwest.

The tease factor is incredible; you can almost hear yourself yell "Lower!" or "Zoom out!" to the obviously well-disciplined camera operator (who seems to have cut his or her chops shooting final scenes in Austin Powers flicks).  Perhaps travel writer Mike Barish put it best when he said:

Anyway, without any further ado:

Phones in cakes, hidden bags in bowling alley lockers; tactics like "Time Bombing" and "Looking in the Rear-View Mirror" outlined in the Pow! book were put to good use...much to the delight of not just everyone at Surprise Central, but obviously to hundreds of thousands around the globe.

Little things mean a lot in Surprise marketing, but see what happens at the other extreme when you decide to throw a lot of money, time and brilliant people at it:

Like dozens of other students just like me, I was lining up to see if I had pulled off a minor miracle and passed Dr. Morty Yalovsky's dreaded Statistics class at McGill University.

The barely-just-over-the-wire sympathy mark of 60 restored my faith in a higher power, and solidified my view that numbers were bad, unless they were yours in the bank.

So here's how I know times have changed big-time:

Numbers have become entertainment.

Analytics, once the raw material and domain of accountants and the most hardcore geeks, have gone mainstream and have become--may I even suggest it?--fun.

Yeah, fun.

Google Analytics slices, dices, shreds and dreadlocks visitation to Surprise Central, not to mention my company Airborne Mobile's site, in a manner so detailed that I know what clothes you are wearing and what you're sipping while reading 'em.

Lijit, the majestic search engine I use for this blog (and a Godsend while researching my own stuff for my Pow! book), provides me with a weekly analysis--for free!--that just five years ago, I'd have to pay some consultancy thousands of dollars for. (And makes me wonder why in the world people are searching here for "Pink Polka".)

Then there's Xobni, the greatest thing to happen to Microsoft Outlook since...well, since Microsoft Outlook.  While it does an incredible job of tracking emails and searching for people and things within them, it also crunches them into a statistical treasure trove of the essential and the sublime. 

For ex, Xobni (that's "Inbox" backwards; how clever) ranks my contacts' email behavior by how many they sent me, how fast they respond, what time of day they do, what day they do the most (I can go on for hours here if I want to).  I can also reverse the look and see how I do amongst all these parameters as well.  The stuff is so fascinating and revealing that sometimes I find myself ignoring the emails themselves, instead too absorbed in the minutiae about them.

The "Funalytics" movement goes further.  In this month's Fast Company, USC prof Marientina Gotsis talks about merging real-world physical activity into a gaming framework (one step further than the Apple/Nike+ iPod/running shoe marriage I suppose, itself documented as part of Wired's cover story this month).  She says:

"It doesn't make sense that your Wii Fit data shouldn't be consolidated into the same system that your doctor uses for tracking your health. 

"Right now, there are practically no interesting applications out there that let you use your personal sensor data or health records to have a fun gaming experience.  That's going to change."

Change it will.  And in a manner guaranteed to Surprise and open up new doors of perception. In fact, I suspect that stats and data, and those who can interpret them in a unique and somewhat twisted manner, will become the new breed of media stars. 

And perhaps even more importantly, it may do for college stats classes everywhere what video games, the 'Net and CGI did for computer classes--make them hip.

This one's from Irish winter holiday operator DirectSki.com.  During the winter months, they placed these die-cut flyers on car windshields overnight, and if mother nature cooperated, the next morning's snowfall or frost converted the slanted glass into slopes, creating countless Pow! moments in parking lots and city streets.

Inspired, brilliant and effective.  Not expensive either.  Ah yes, little things indeed mean--and impact--a lot. (Much thanks, Slumlord Amin!)

Well Kevin, the best way to see more of it is to do it yourself. 

What are you, or ANY of you out there, waiting for?

In fact, an immigrant from the "Old Country," she never even learned to read English.  This is why, when she went to restaurants, she always ordered the exact same thing:

"I'll have what he/she is having."

I thought of Auntie Rita over the weekend while enjoying the camaraderie and bargains at a community sidewalk sale.  Killing some time while waiting for my family to join me, I paraded by the many stalls selling everything from McFarlane Sports action figures and kitchen knick-knacks to high-end fashion and designer eyewear.  Watching the consumer behavior, I realized that despite her lack of formal education (never mind her illiteracy!), Auntie Rita at least understood one of the key, double-fisted secrets of marketing:

1) People want what they can't have

2) People want what others got

This is no great revelation.  Scarcity and envy have been a devilish duo in marketing for years.  But still, sometimes lessons need to be re-learned.  And re-lived.  Live.  Such was my Sunday.

For blocks, I watched it happen over and over.  Items ignored for a spell until touched by someone else, then becoming instantly desirable to many. It was fun to watch, but after a while I decided--perhaps a little nastily--play with people's heads and wallets a bit myself. 

I would head over to a table of goods, pick something up, look at it, handle it...and watched stealthly as others watched me.  Then, as soon as I put it down--WHAM!--somebody else picked it up. They didn't always buy, but the cause-and-effect was VERY effective.

This isn't just brick-and-mortar.  I see this work on-line all the time, most recently with a company called "Beyond The Rack."  They sell "Luxury Brands at Exclusive Prices" in three-or-four day sales periods.  Of course, the items that seem to be most desired are the ones labeled "Sold Out" or "Reserved (read: touched) by Others."

So...what does this mean? 

As marketers, we always want to sell more.  Maybe the answer is to make less.

Or at least, invest in a new breed of secret weapon: The Product Toucher.

From the mad mind and majestic hands of illustrator supreme Nate Williams comes this packaging for, well...dog poop bags.

Silly?  Foolish?  Unnecessary?   Perhaps...

But if dogshit bags can take so well to a striking makeover, so can anything you or I make to make our living.

Thanks again Fitzy, and congrats to the folks at Olive Green Dog for this (pronounce carefully!) initiative.

An email from golden-throated Peter Ganim tells me that the release sked of the Pow! audiobook version has been pushed up and is actually now available at Audible.com.  See below:

Peter did a superb job of capturing the feel of the book (and does a mean impression of Russian chess master Garry Kasparov).  You can get a free sample of his work--and mine!--by clicking here. 

Better still, you can actually buy and download it while there.

Okay, so who wants the movie rights?