World Cup of surprises

There's a very popular cliché in Brazil which says that 'football is a little box of surprises' ('futebol é uma caixinha de surpresas'). This phrase is commonly used by players in interviews when asked to give their opinions about a match. But if there was ever a tournament when this phrase really meant something, it is the World Cup in Brazil.

Already in the beginning of the competition, we started seeing some completely unexpected results: the world champions Spain taking a serious beating from Holland, Costa Rica winning over the traditional Celeste team of Uruguay, and eventually classifying in first place in one of the 'death groups' of the tournament, and many other surprising results (I’m sure UK fans experienced many of those unpleasant surprises, unfortunately, and US fans were surprised at their unexpected early good fortune and then surprised at how quickly that evaporated). The groups phase came to a closing with no less than three world champions taking an earlier flight home, making way for a round of 16 that began already with a penalty shoot-out.

Way too much excitement for this poor Brazilian heart!

But, for me, one very interesting point is to see the extent to which this is making people more and more excited and emotionally engaged with the World Cup, even if the engagement is still not the same as we had in previous years.

Everyone knows the difficult political and social context Brazil is facing right now. Since June 2013, when the population took to the streets demanding better government services, the mood around the World Cup became very negative. The vast majority of Brazilians were against Brazil hosting the event - and still now, most people think this wasn't positive for the country.

So how come such a bad mood gets replaced by happiness and excitement in such a short period of time? Well, in my opinion, the emotion that can best explain a big part of this is surprise.

As humans, we are more or less programed to seek comfort and security. Therefore, we tend to favor familiar situations that don’t demand too much of our mental and physical resources.

The problem is that this comfortable 'state of mind' is also detrimental to our ability of revisiting our opinions and beliefs. If nothing challenges our status quo, we stick to our views and old habits.

Surprise, on the other hand, is an emotion that signals something has changed, something out of the ordinary has happened. It forces our brains to make sense of new things. So every now and then, surprise can be a useful tool to help us revisit and change our habits and behaviours.

This World Cup is teaching us, marketers, a valuable lesson on the importance of emotions for our jobs. If we want to stay fresh and creative, we need to be flexible and adaptable. A good shot of surprise on a regular basis can be very useful (I’m getting my daily dose by following the World Cup matches).

And, at the same time, if we want our consumers to change their minds about a product or a brand, break a habit or change some behavior, maybe trying something surprising can work wonders to start that change. After that, the experience you deliver is what will determine if the change is long lasting or not.

I hope the World Cup keeps surprising us, and that our national teams will manage to delight us even more. Vai Brasil!!

Gabriel is Managing Director of Brainjuicer - Latin America. Read more from them in our Clubhouse.