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Anyway, today’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.

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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; “Oh, so you want to have a thong fight do you?” 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 didn’t expect be thrust upon him—in this case quite aggressively—forcing him to straighten his spine, steel his gaze and take notice. His attention had been captured.

_{*Note: ‘Thong’ 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 today’s goal. By the end of today’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. Let’s just hope you use your newfound powers for good not evil. Don’t be like Danny.

When I discovered the pattern interrupt

I first discovered the pattern interrupt—unknowingly of course, as I was the one under it’s spell—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). Let’s break down the human mind throughout each section of the video.

_{*Before I continue I’d like to apologise to any female and little people readers of this newsletter. I don’t condone boxes filled with women or putting beards on children.}

This famous video reportedly cost less than $1,500 and grew Dollar Beard Club’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 Draper’s of the world, Coinbase was created an ad so creative a few monkey’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 Coinbase’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 didn’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 King’s ‘Whopper Detour’

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 McDonald’s locations and offering a Whopper for just $0.01 to anyone who ordered through their app while standing near a McDonald’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 wasn’t their only mic-drop moment. Burger King has consistently leaned into controversial and attention-grabbing stunts:

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

The Whopper Detour was the pinnacle of this strategy—a perfect example of how to hijack your rival’s turf while winning over customers. McDonald’s should take notes.

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But it’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, let’s take a look at a few brands, that are a true pattern interrupt at their core. Colour palettes, animations, design, copywriting—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. It’s “zero-sugar, high protein” cereal, and can cost up to $40 per box. In order to stand out and define it’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. It’s a phenomenal pattern interrupt to what the average consumer scrolling through this social feed would expect.

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 ‘cool’ is nice of course. The 15-year old version of me thought as much, and it’s safe to say it’s better than not being cool as a brand, but it goes deeper than that. Let’s look at some X’s and O’s.

Why do pattern interrupt work?

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

Let’s compare a regular Meta Ads campaign to one that catches fire because of its creative execution:

Why the difference? Meta’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 people’s brains.

Combine this with the buzz a viral campaign generates, and you’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.

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.

Playbook / How you can apply this

To summarise

Well that’s really all these is today team. From Danny’s thong fight, to Coinbase’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

And that's it! You can follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn and also don’t forget to check out Athyna while you’re at it.

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

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