Unexpectedness is about grabbing a person’s attention. You can grab an individual’s attention by surprising them with something that violates their expectations. Surprise is an emotion that forces a person to pause and collect more information about the world around them. Surprise gets a person’s attention in the moment, but curiosity holds their attention over time.
How then do you create curiosity? Create a gap between what a person knows and what he wants or feels he should know. These gaps cause us a kind of pain that stimulates our desire to fill them in.
For example: “Massacre in San Bernardino (unexpected) – details at 11:00 (curiosity)”. The headline captured our attention and stimulated our desire to fill in the details of the event.
How can you craft your message to be more sticky by surprising your audience with something unexpected and holding their attention with curiosity?
