Does your marketing take consumers by surprise? Are they having a hard time not noticing your brand or has your marketing blended in with the scenery around it?

I was driving down the street the other day and saw a rather odd sight. I passed a guy jogging along the walking path that runs parallel to the street. There is nothing particularly unusual about that. I see walkers and joggers all the time. The unusual thing was that he was running in shorts and wasn’t wearing a shirt. What is so odd about a shirtless man running? The odd thing was when he was running. You see, we were experiencing a cold spell and it was below freezing that day. He led me to believe he was either trying to prove that he could endure the cold exposure – and was very proud of himself for doing so – or he was a little off kilter in his thinking.

There is a marketing lesson here. Marketing is designed to capture the attention of consumers – to make them look at your brand. Taking your market by surprise will do this. If the jogger had been dressed the same way in the middle of summer, I would not have taken notice of him. Because he was not dressed for the weather, he stood out. The truth is, I only noticed the man because the weather conditions said something was abnormal about this experience.

There is a right time and a wrong time to push a marketing campaign. Timing is very important if you are going to reach consumers, especially if you are dealing with a specific target market that can be defined by similar habits and thinking. Is marketing just about doing the unexpected? No, there is more to it than ambushing the attention of the consumer. But if you want to capture the attention of potential buyers, marketing in an unanticipated, astonishing way works.

To do so, you have to find your target market. I have heard of people who do outdoor sports in cold weather wearing little attire. There are clubs for those who go swimming in frozen lakes in January or who snow ski in swimwear. There is a niche group of people who would see running shirtless in sub-freezing weather as a great thing to do. In marketing, you have to define who you are trying to sell. That comes down to a couple of factors: what are their wants and needs and how does your brand meet these desires? Brand marketing is all about finding a fit between a target group and your brand.

It is one thing to define your target market and quite another to understand them. Your marketing message has to reflect their thinking. Messaging is more than just the words you use in marketing, it is also the visuals and the people who represent your brand. Here is where so many marketing campaigns go awry. What one person thinks is edgy, another person thinks is in poor taste. The shirtless runner will be seen as a leader and hero symbol to some people, but a lunatic who is terribly askew to others. The first group will be drawn to him (and your brand) while the second group will try to get as far away as possible. Understand the consumers who are likely to buy from you. If you violate their conscience with your messaging, they will leave your brand behind. If you stimulate them to see your brand as a cutting-edge leader, they will follow – and buy!

Finally, there is a right place for your marketing. Where you market your brand matters. That is also defined by your target market. If I were to advertise a soup kitchen on the shorts of a shirtless running club, I would not find much success. If I were to advertise a running shoe on the shorts of the same club, I might get some traction!

There is a right time, a right group, a right message and a right place for marketing. Find the right fit for your brand.