Today, the most clever brand communication is self-promulgating.

Anyone currently working in brand communication is facing fundamental yet compelling challenges. In an age in which we are flooded with information, consumers are becoming more critical and discerning. They are deploying ever finer filters so that only the most relevant pieces of information ever reach them. Because of this development, traditional brand and advertising messages are far less likely to be seen.

Taken by Surprise is a collection of communication measures that are sophisticated and relevant enough to overcome these hurdles. They include limited special edition products and signature collaborations between brands, artists, and designers such as those between Julian Schnabel and Maybach, Issey Miyake and Dyson, Sagmeister and Levi’s, Olafur Eliasson and BMW, Jonathan Meese and Staehlemuehle, Terry Richardson and Colette as well as other innovative work by the likes of Damien Hirst, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, David Lynch, Geoff McFetridge, and Pharrell Williams.

The book also showcases select promotional gifts that have become collector’s items, arresting trade fair stands, guerilla campaigns, and exclusive events. Portraits of trailblazers such as Maison Martin Margiela, Bompas & Parr, Fiona Leahy, Krink, and Trigger Happy Productions provide insight into the process and strategy involved in their creation and implementation. The brand communication measures introduced in Taken by Surprise are so cleverly planned and disseminated that they become self-promulgating—either through word of mouth or in the flow of digital information. Target audiences become brand ambassadors, customers become collaborators, and consumption becomes an experience. Taken by Surprise offers advertising agencies, designers, and marketing departments inspiration for the development of more original, more creative, and more attractive brand communication than ever before.

本书讲述的是全球商业品牌与顶尖的艺术家、设计师跨界合作，或者是品牌的御用设计师，或者是艺术家制造一个装置秀出品牌，这是一个双赢的模式。诞生了诸如Julian Schnabel and Maybach, Issey Miyake and Dyson（三宅一生和戴森）, Sagmeister and Levi’s, Olafur Eliasson and BMW（奥拉维尔·埃利亚松和宝马）, Jonathan Meese and Staehlemuehle, Terry Richardson and Colette as well as other innovative work by the likes of Damien Hirst, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, David Lynch, Geoff McFetridge, and Pharrell Williams.等强强组合，造就了许多业界传颂的经典。