A few years ago on a cold January morning during rush hour a man walked in to a metro station in Washington DC. He was carrying a violin case. He stopped near the enterance were hundreds of busy commuters were being channeled in and out of the station.

He opened the violin case, took out the violin and carefully placed the open case at his feet in front of him.

Over the course of an hour he played six of the most complex and intricate pieces of classical music ever written.

“Chaconne” Partita No. 2 in D Minor Johann Sebastian Bach

“Ave Maria” Franz Schubert

“Estrellita,” Manuel Ponce

“Meditation de Thais” Jules Massenet

“dour Violin Concerto in G Minor” Max Bruch

“Chaconne” (reprise) Johann Sebastian Bach

During that time’ six people stopped and listened’ including a young boy who force his mother to stop in her tracks.

A few more people tossed coins and notes as the quickly passed by. Once he was finished he packed away his violin and left the station with the $32 dollars he had collected in his case.

The man was Joshua Bell, one of the world’s finest classical musicians. He played each piece on a three hundred year old Stradivarius valued at 3.5 million dollars. A week earlier in Boston’s Symphony Hall, the cheapest seats at his concert cost $100.

This was an exercise sponsored by the Washington Post in to studying perception, priorities and awareness of people going about their daily lives.

It reminds us of how people are so wrapped up in the own lives and how little they take notice of the world around them. It’s also a reminder how difficult it is to interrupt our audience from whatever else they are doing and engage with them.

If six musical masterpieces played to perfection by Joshua Bell can only stop a few people in their tracks and out of their everyday routine, imagine how good your advertising has to be?