Shane McMahon is a 4th generation McMahon, minority owner in the WWE, and vice-chairman of WeCast Holdings jumping 20-feet off of a steel cage Sunday night for the purpose of entertaining the crowd at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit.

Whether or not you are a wrestling fan, it is quite a sight seeing a 47 year old man leaping off of a cage knowing he will miss his opponent (because…safety) in the same way that you know Charlie Brown will never kick that football.

But he did it, yes for the thrill, and for the sake of the performance. Using the lexicon of the medium he “sacrificed his body for the sake of the art.” Which seems preposterous unless you look at it through a different lens.

Brands are constantly trying to attract at keep customers while being assaulted by new technology, new marketing techniques, and the cost destroying Godzilla that is Amazon — so how do you stand out? Leap off a building on to your car? No, you stand out by going well beyond what your competition is willing to do in order to connect and foster a customer relationship.

As Jay Acunzo says:

It has NEVER been easier to be AVERAGE

Back to Detroit, Sunday night there is NO shortage of things to watch, Sunday Night Football, Netflix, Hulu, Fear the Walking Dead, go out and see Blade Runner 2049, and so on…The one thing that the WWE understands is the long tail of content so this singular event has been shared, viewed, liked, and commented on millions of times — a vast majority of these people were not in the arena, nor were they watching the Pay Per View. But this 15-second piece of content drives customers back into the brand even if they are not regular consumers of it.

All because Shane was willing to make that leap.

For brands price is no longer a winning strategy because there is always someone who can undercut you, as Seth Godin says —the problem with the race to the bottom is that you might win:

Macy’s

Sears

Toys R Us

Bebe

J C Penny

Payless Shoesource

K-Mart

The Limited

So how do you win? Be willing to do incredible things your competitor wouldn’t even think of doing. Something unexpected in the shipping box when it arrives on their door, remember their name and drink when they come in to get coffee (and when), know their favorite seat in your restaurant, handwrite thank you notes, send gift cards to customers when they least expect it, upgrade for NO reason at all, make each interaction feel special.

It is a LOT of work. There is a lot that can go wrong much like leaping from a steel cage, but the payoff might be the difference between standing out and blending it. If your brand seems like every other brand the consumer tends to default to price and then you lose the chance to speak to them because price has no questions (google will help them there), price has no risk for them (the pick or they don’t), price is not a benefit it is an expectation, until it isn’t.

Experiences build memories.

Not one person in that arena remembers what they paid for the tickets or the beer they drank.