Pattern Interrupt Marketing, What Is It?

A stop you in your tracks style of attention grabbing and why you need to implement it. šŸ‘€

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Had a pretty tough week this week. Came back to work this Thursday at Athynaā€”reminder if you are hiring remotely we can helpā€”which was swimmingly, but my dog Ziggy has been very sick. We had plans to be on a beachside road trip this week but we had day after day after day of vet visits, scans and tests.

When your dog is sick it really takes it out of you. Dogs are family after all.

The good news is, he is back eating little bits of boiled chicken, and will likely be on the mend over the next few days.

Anyway, todayā€™s post should be a fun one. I have forever been obsessed with two things in business: brand and culture. Today we are talking brand, and in particular the idea of pattern interrupt marketing. I really enjoyed writing it, so here hoping you enjoy reading it.

TL;DR ME šŸ™„

  • Pattern interrupts grab attention by breaking the expected: Think of it as a mental jolt that forces people to stop, notice, and engage.

  • From beard clubs to magical spoons: These strategies turn mundane into memorable. Be it with bold visuals, unexpected humour, or downright quirky execution.

  • Even a simple floating QR code crashed the internet: Pattern interrupts are not just cleverā€”theyā€™re revenue drivers when done right.

  • The big idea: Itā€™s not about being loud. Itā€™s about being surprising and authentic enough to stand out in a sea of sameness.

BUSINESS STORY šŸ—žļø

Pattern Interrupt Marketing, What Is It?

I once saw a guy named Danny, with two flip flops in his hands, walk up to a stranger at a festival, and hand one to the stranger. The moment the stranger accepted the flip flop, Danny looked him in the eyes and said; ā€œOh, so you want to have a thong fight do you?ā€ And he slapped the man square across the face with his one remaining flip flop.

Today though, I want you to suspend your judgement of the man by the name of Danny. I want us to focus on the experience of the stranger. The slappee, not the slapper. The poor soul that had had something that he didnā€™t expect be thrust upon himā€”in this case quite aggressivelyā€”forcing him to straighten his spine, steel his gaze and take notice. His attention had been captured.

*Note: ā€˜Thongā€™ is Australian for flip flop for all those confused American readers.

Sure this is a strange real world example, and the less you know this feeling IRL the better, but you understand my point. This is the pattern interrupt. And this is quite literally an attention money printing machine for you and your business. Should you know how to harness it.

So that is todayā€™s goal. By the end of todayā€™s piece my goal is for you to walk away with a better understanding of how you to can absolutely slap the proverbial salami out of someone so much so that they can not look away. Letā€™s just hope you use your newfound powers for good not evil. Donā€™t be like Danny.

When I discovered the pattern interrupt

I first discovered the pattern interruptā€”unknowingly of course, as I was the one under itā€™s spellā€”when I was served this famous Dollar Beard Club ad, where shirtless, fuzzy-faced founder, Chris Stoikos, walks through their beard maintenance tools, whilst mocking the original Dollar Shave Club version of the ad in the doing.

Why does this promotional video work so well? Simple. It grabs your attention and quite literally NeVEr leTs GooOo (not sure why I write it like that). Letā€™s break down the human mind throughout each section of the video.

Section

Scene

Emotion

First 10 seconds

Bearded man, sitting in throne.

Intrigue: ā€œHuh, who is this chap?ā€

12 seconds in

Slaps shaving man ā€œabolishing his manhood.ā€

WTF?: ā€œYeah, shaving does kinda suck.ā€

A few seconds later

ā€œI eat shaving cream for breakfastā€ + introduces product.

More intrigue: ā€œIā€™ve actually always wanted to grow a beard.ā€

Second 0:32-0:40

Motorcycle rides through warehouse + swimming in box full of women.

Desire: ā€œWhy canā€™t I have a motorbike and box full of women.ā€

44 seconds in

CHEST HAIR REVEAL.

Shock: ā€œOk, seriously, what the hell am I watching?ā€

Second 51

Winning line; ā€œSmelling like the beard of Zeus.ā€

Jealous religiosity: ā€œI want my beard to smell God-ish.ā€

The next 20 seconds

Filling in the details (the pitch).

Contemplation: ā€œTell me more.ā€

Final 10 seconds

Enter old man, small Amish boy.

Succumbing: ā€œOk you crazy bastards, Iā€™m in.ā€

*Before I continue Iā€™d like to apologise to any female and little people readers of this newsletter. I donā€™t condone boxes filled with women or putting beards on children.

This famous video reportedly cost less than $1,500 and grew Dollar Beard Clubā€™s subscriber base by 15,000 in less than four weeks. Nine short months later it had seen viewed over 2 million times.

I was so blown away by the video that I somehow found myself on a webinar with the founder, Chris, in which he first spoke of the idea they had been going for with the video: the pattern interrupt. The idea was firmly tattooed in my hippocampus from that day onwards.

Here are a couple of examples of great pattern interrupting brands / campaigns you may or may not have seen. Starting with an internet-busting, floating QR code.

Example #1 - Coinbase Super Bowl QR masterpiece

The first ad that come to mind as a genuine interrupter is the Coinbase 2022 Super Bowl masterpiece. While Budweiser, Taco Bell, and Nissan were out signing million dollar checks to the Don Draperā€™s of the world, Coinbase was created an ad so creative a few monkeyā€™s on typewriter getting paid in BananaCoin could have designed it.

*Coinbase actually worked with Accenture on the ads, but highlighting the simplicity of the idea.

Once scanned, the code brought viewers to Coinbaseā€™s website, which showed a promotion of $15 worth of free Bitcoin to new sign ups, along with a $3 million giveaway that customers can enter. They followed the ad up with a tweet to make sure it sunk in.

The promotion was so successful that it sent over twenty (two-zero) million people to the site within the 60 second running of the ad. This predictably, crashed the Coinbase site for a time. But it didnā€™t matter. The QR stunt spurred 445k+ new sign ups and sent Coinbase rocketing to the #2 spot on the Apple App Store charts.

The ad was so successful because it was exceptionally creative, and novel. And by definition a pattern interrupt to the audience of sports fans watching around the globe.

Example #2 - Burger Kingā€™s ā€˜Whopper Detourā€™

The Burger King marketing team is one of the most creative teams in the world, with a knack for bold moves that grab headlines and drive results.

Their famous 'Whopper Detour' campaign in 2018 was nothing short of legendary. By geo-fencing over 14,000 McDonaldā€™s locations and offering a Whopper for just $0.01 to anyone who ordered through their app while standing near a McDonaldā€™s, Burger King pulled off the ultimate marketing troll. The campaign led to a 37:1 return on ad spend, over 1.5 million app downloads in less than 48 hours, and a 300% increase in mobile order sales during the campaign period.

But this wasnā€™t their only mic-drop moment. Burger King has consistently leaned into controversial and attention-grabbing stunts:

  • 'Burn That Ad' Campaign (2019): Using augmented reality (AR), users could ā€œburnā€ competitor ads (mainly McDonaldā€™s) via the Burger King app and be rewarded with a free Whopper. This campaign brought in thousands of downloads and massive buzz.

  • The Moldy Whopper (2020): To emphasise their commitment to removing artificial preservatives, they released an ad showing a Whopper decomposing over 34 days. The hauntingly beautiful time-lapse sparked global conversation about food quality and transparency.

  • The Silent Drive-Thru (2022): In Finland, Burger King trolled McDonaldā€™s again by introducing a drive-thru that only served customers if they were silentā€”mocking how some competitors' services miss the ā€œhuman touch.ā€

Burger Kingā€™s strategy? Punch up, troll the competition, and deliver campaigns that people have to talk about.

The Whopper Detour was the pinnacle of this strategyā€”a perfect example of how to hijack your rivalā€™s turf while winning over customers. McDonaldā€™s should take notes.

But itā€™s not all about big campaigns

Coinbase itself, from a brand perspective, is not a pattern interrupt. Nor is Burger King. So moving on from the famous campaigns, letā€™s take a look at a few brands, that are a true pattern interrupt at their core. Colour palettes, animations, design, copywritingā€”there are many ways to differentiate yourself from the market, but my favourite example is Magic Spoon cereal.

The cereal itself is quite different to your regular everyday box of Froot Loops. Itā€™s ā€œzero-sugar, high proteinā€ cereal, and can cost up to $40 per box. In order to stand out and define itā€™s as different, and even premium cereal, it partnered with renowned psychedelic artist Levi Jacobs to create the brand.

And as you can see, it looks like no other cereal brand on the market. Itā€™s a phenomenal pattern interrupt to what the average consumer scrolling through this social feed would expect.

ā

I breezed past all of the ads for keto-this and paleo-that without much thought. But Magic Spoon stopped me mid-scroll.

- Mark Smirniotis, New York Times

Two other phenomenal examples of pattern interrupt brands I admire are; Who Gives A Crap, and Up. Who Gives A Crap are a toilet paper brand, and Up is a bank. Both brands are born and bred Australian brands, the latter co-founder by Dom Pym, who we did to pieces with recently (one / two).

What I love here rings true through all three examples; they made the boring cool. Magic Spoon made cereal cool, Who Gives A Crap made toilet paper cool, and Up made a bank cool. Think about that just for a moment. What are three of the most boring things in the know universe? Cereal, shit tickets, and banking.

Being ā€˜coolā€™ is nice of course. The 15-year old version of me thought as much, and itā€™s safe to say itā€™s better than not being cool as a brand, but it goes deeper than that. Letā€™s look at some Xā€™s and Oā€™s.

Why do pattern interrupt work?

Letā€™s face it: the internet is crowded, noisy, and attention spans are shorter than ever before thanks to the TikTokification of our brains. Thatā€™s why pattern interrupts shine. They break the monotony, grab attention, and force people to stop scrolling.

Letā€™s compare a regular Meta Ads campaign to one that catches fire because of its creative execution:

Traditional advertising campaign

Pattern interrupt campaign

Cost per click (CPC)

~$1.20

Often as low as ~$0.60 due to higher engagement

Click-through rate (CTR)

1.5%

Can spike to 3ā€“5% or more (some campaigns hit double digits)

Return on investment (ROI)

Highly dependent on volume, targeting, and landing page quality

Explosive. Viral campaigns can yield 2ā€“3x the ROI of traditional ads

Overall vibe

Safe, predictable, forgettable

Eye-catching, memorable, conversation-starting

Why the difference? Metaā€™s algorithm prioritises engagement. If your ad makes people stop scrolling, comment, or share, Meta rewards you with lower ad costs. This can cut your cost per click by up to 50%. And people are more likely to remember things that stand out thanks to something known as the Von Restorff Effect. When your ad looks nothing like the polished, corporate templates your competitors use, it burns into peopleā€™s brains.

Combine this with the buzz a viral campaign generates, and youā€™ve upended the economics of traditional advertising.

My bold attempts at the art form

When founding Athyna, I always knew I wanted to try to create a outstanding, pattern interrupting brand. So a couple of years in, after doing some brand foundation work we decided to rebrand. Keeping the name, but changing our look.

In order to do this, I worked alongside two of our early hires, Mati and Ed, and enlisted the help of two outsiders, creative director type, Josefina ā€˜Cucuā€™ Cordoba, and a designer named Andres MariƱo. (Both Cucu and Andy would go on to join us at Athyna)

After sharing some examples with Andyā€”I actually shared every example I shared above and a few moreā€”I gave him the clear direction of what we were looking for; ā€œThe Greek Gods, in the sky and the clouds ā€¦ on acid.ā€

His first draft was what you see here. It was a masterpiece. Exactly what we were looking for.

Our brand did wonders for us for the years that followed. People remembered us. We try to combining it with my personal brand which is quite unique also (and a bit of a pattern interrupt) to make sure that whether you are a talent, an investor, a startup looking to hire, or something else, you think of us.

Same goes for this newsletter. Here is one of my earliest drafts for the brand I was going for. I think it ended up a bit too weird, so in the end, I tapered off a little.

I do all the designs myself for this newsletter, and am pretty time pressed but we have some cool brand elements we will start adding soon.

I will tease one of them for you here. More to come on that soon.

Coming soon.

Playbook / How you can apply this

  • Audit your brand touchpoints: Is your messaging or design predictable? Inject an element of surprise; be it copy, imagery, or video.

  • Keep it aligned with your audience: Your pattern interrupt should resonate with the people youā€™re trying to reach, not just shock them for the sake of it.

  • Experiment on social media: Test micro-pattern interrupts (e.g., meme-style posts or unconventional reels) to see what sticks.

  • Donā€™t overdo it: Novelty loses its charm if overused. Balance quirky moments with meaningful engagement.

  • Learn from success stories: Revisit campaigns like Dollar Beard Club or Magic Spoon to understand how they stayed authentic while grabbing attention.

To summarise

Well thatā€™s really all these is today team. From Dannyā€™s thong fight, to Coinbaseā€™s crypto mechadom, this is the pattern interrupt. Now your goal for today / this week / this month / this year / is to go out and build something fun. Put a smile on someones face with something surprising. You might even just lower your CPMs along the way.

Extra reading

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Just caught an episode from Greg Isenbergā€™s podcast about kicking off newsletter businesses in 2025. He dives into different newsletter concepts that have a real shot at profitabilityā€”from niche areas like sports team coverage to B2B sectors targeting decision-makers. Newsletters are the new black, act accordingly. 

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