Those words, “Positive Disruption” came to me a few days ago.

I don’t recall where I was, or if it was someone else who uttered those 2 words, but they caught my attention and I sent myself an email with just those two words.

Positive Disruption are two words that seem like opposites but in reality, I believe they are a key theme to successful marketing, branding and advertising right now.

Here’s why:

In an ever increasing world of stuff competing for our attention, it has become more and more difficult to capture anyone’s attention.

I’m talking about the web world, the tv world, the mobile media world, the social media world, and each of our own personal worlds.

We can’t possibly take it all in.  Our brains have a safety mechanism that filters out most of the stuff we are exposed to, at a subconscious level.  Then at the conscious level we are always deciding what gets our attention and what fades away in the background of our lives.

A lot of us have a shifting list of priorities that is in flux during our waking moments.

This is why Disruption is important.

Something that gets our attention has to be a disruption from what we were planning, doing or expecting.

The radio commercial that is different from the usual blah, blah.

The TV ad that makes us stop and watch.

The comment, conversation, sound, image or idea that demands we stop

and

pay

attention.

But, it’s not just any type of Disruption that you need to create.

That’s why I said Positive Disruption.

On a sliding scale of negative to positive, most marketing messages fall in the middle.

The middle is average.

The middle is mediocre.

The middle is bland, boring, forgettable and a waste.

It is much better to create something that drives and provokes emotion.

Sure, you could be outrageously negative, but that often backfires even when it is memorable, it doesn’t usually promote sales.

Go for the other extreme.  The Positive extreme.

Create a plethora of warm fuzzies.  But remember it also has to capture our attention, so much that it disrupts what we are doing and captures our attention.

That is your mission.

Create a Positive Disruption.