Courtesy marketing?

I'm reading "POW! Right Between the Eyes" by Andy* Nulman. The two-second synopsis is that it's about using surprise to boost consumer interest in your marketing. Sounds boring when I put it that way

A segment I just read was a story Nulman tells about being in a Chapters bookstore during Christmas, waiting in a long line to buy a stack of books. While waiting, an employee festooned with Christmas garb taps him on the shoulder to offer him a chocolate while he waits.

I don't have the exact passage, but to paraphrase, "They created a story that would later be told in a national best-selling book and in numerous public speaking engagements across the country. How many people have now heard of Chapters, for the cost of about ten bucks worth of chocolate?"

I've worked in marketing for some time now ... in fact, you could almost argue that I've been in marketing for all of my adult life. I recognize genius when I see it, and this is it.

For some reason, when I read this story, it brought up a memory from about fifteen years ago. I was at an Earth Day concert with a girl I'd been dating for a few months. We were still young enough in our relationship that I had let her convince me to see a live performance of Lisa Loeb.

To be fair, there was one really good moment where the crowd was actually chanting "Stay! Stay!" in an attempt to get her to do the one song anyone had ever heard from her. Without missing a beat, she said, "It's ok ... I'm not going anywhere." Badump-bump.

That day, the temperature was certainly in the triple digits, and the sun was brutal. People were being carted out in ambulances. Random concert goers were bursting into flame. And, of course, the vendors saw this as an opportunity to rake everyone over the glowing coals that made up the parking lot at our feet.

Water, suddenly the most in-demand substance around, was selling in small, two-ounce bottles for a startling five dollars per. Also, they ran out of water around the end of hour two of the ten-hour sweat-fest.

So, what does this have to do with free chocolate at a Chapters bookstore? I was just thinking, what if some enterprising company had said, "Hey, people like to live! Let's go buy a truck load of ice-cold bottled water, park our company-branded truck out front of this huge gathering of people, and give out free bottles to anyone who comes by!"

Imagine if they'd had the foresight to get vanity bottles, and put their name and Web address on them. Imagine if they'd done this while asking nothing in return, with maybe the hearty slogan of, "Continue to live ... compliments of Kevin." Or insert the name of someone or something YOU'D like promote ... this is my blog, after all.

Imagine that ... marketing through courtesy. That's certainly as surprise. I'd love to see more of it.

Let me know if you have examples of this, or if you are using something like this in your own marketing (or plan to). And remember the Kevin motto: Awesome is as awesome does.

* D'oh. I accidentally misspelled Andy's name. Because I'm a schmuck like that. Oh well ... Surprise Andy! Everybody gets an R!