Last Thursday, I attended a workshop during Cannes Lions by Ravid Kuperberg of Mindscapes, called "The Logic of the Magic of Creative Bravery."
One of the most interesting creative approaches he shared was the concept of sabotage — actively removing or over-complicating something important, in order to help it stand out.
A great example:
A Welsh town wanted to stand out on the train line between two bigger towns, so they changed the name of the town to Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. (Yes, that's the real name of the town. Naomi Watts lived there as a child.) By making the name nearly impossible, they become unignorable.
Another example:
The Whopper Freakout campaign for Burger King, where they removed the Whopper from the menu, and filmed people's reactions — thus highlighting how much people love the Whopper.
Try applying this technique to a project or challenge of your own. Take something important and break it, remove it, mess with it, obscure it, complicate it — and see if that doesn't help it stand out.
To put this to the test, I messed with the subject header of this email and went with nonsensical vs a standard hook. Did it get your attention?