Evolving Great Ideas From Bad Ideas.

In my years of generating Ideas, I have found that while each one is unique, the path is eerily similar. In my head this process is generational in that it takes one step to create the next.

The first generation of Ideas are the easy ones. The puns, the things that are like other things, the simple connections. These make sense, have the basic feel of an Idea and sometimes convince you that you are done. A little time watching TV and you’ll see plenty of these. The most basic is the illustrate the problem. “Auto Insurance got you pulling your hair out?” And the visual is a guy pulling his hair out. Heh Heh. That’s great. Look at him with the wacky hair and he looks pissed. And there’s your logo. 

Illustrate the problem is but one example of First Generation Ideas. Write em down so they no longer take up valuable space in your brain.

Second Generation Ideas make no sense. Sometimes in brainstorming you think they make sense. But when you go back over your list, you end up asking, “What did we mean Ice Cream Sundae of home repair options. I thought that was cool yesterday, but I can’t really explain it today.”

Don’t worry. You are moving toward an Idea. Crazy connections that don’t work, that others don’t understand, that take three page explanations are part of the process.

Because then you come to the beauties of third generation Ideas. Having gone thru the obvious and the derivative, moved past the insane, you’ve arrived at Gold. OK all the concepts you develop here aren’t Gold, but to come up with a clear, strong concept that uniquely connects your product/service to your customer/prospect, it takes work.

So don’t settle for the common or the crazy. Work to get to the Idea.

The Idea makes it easier for your employees.

The Idea tells more than your customers who you are, it tells your employees too.

With a clear expression of what makes your company unique, your employees know exactly what to do in every situation. You’ll never be surprised how they react to a customer. Do they issue a refund with a smile or do they keep the money in the drawer? Do they bring in the right new business that you are looking for or are they wasting valuable sales hours with bad referrals?

Make sure you express your Idea to your employees as well as your customers.

It doesn’t have to be difficult. It just has to be consistent.

The jukebox response.

Even though I’m old, a jukebox was still before my time. But I’ve always thought a good Idea delivers the Jukebox Response. That is, when you push J8, you used to get Chuck Berry. When I push cold, thirst-quenching drink while driving, I get 7-11’s Slurpee.

What buttons need to be pushed to have your brand to show up in the customers’ minds? What situation/filters/time of year/emotion makes them pick you out of the stacks of competition?

What I like about the analogy of the Idea as a Jukebox is that you can only own one thing. And it has to be unique to you. You can’t be cheap and quick if someone else in your space already is. You have to come up with a button that is all your own.

So ask yourself, if the customer wanted to find your brand, what jukebox buttons would he push?

Now you’re getting to an Idea.

Roll over Beethoven. 

Everyone doesn't have to be right. Everyone just has to be included.

Machiavelli told us it is better to be feared than loved. But Machiavelli would make a terrible marketer.

Input is important. Listening, writing down, and showing that you heard what everyone said. Once you have their input, you can use consumers to tell them that it is not cogent. But if you tell them their Idea doesn’t matter, whether that is by action or directly, they will tell you your Idea doesn’t matter.

The start of any Idea generating process should be consensus building. This is when concepts are inexpensive and plentiful. Court them from everyone. Make sure your problem children get special attention.

When they are heard, they will listen. When they have been included on the input they will have ownership of the output.

Build consensus and you can build an Idea that permeates your organization. 

How BK missed the Idea and sold Big Macs.

Working at Leo Burnett in the late 80s, the most coveted assignments were the “reputation” spots for McDonalds. These were some of the most memorable spots McDonalds has ever done, because they put McDonalds into people’s lives and didn’t try to cram cheeseburgers down their throats.

Roy Berghold, the one man responsible for all the McDonalds advertising during that period tells the story of the power of the Idea.

For years McDonalds had done reputation spots like Olympic Hopefuls about the little kids and their Olympic aspirations and the classic Country Hero spot where the kid loses the big race but is greeted at the train station by the whole town when he returns. 

Burger King tried to do their own reputation spot and actually did a really nice job at it. They entered it into a national award show and won a big award. But what happened next proved the power of the Idea.

The person in charge of the award show called up McDonalds and told them they had won a prize for their spot. They went back and looked it up and they had to admit Leo Burnett didn’t enter a spot of that title.

It was the Burger King spot created by their agency. But the Idea of a reputation spot was so firmly McDonalds that even when BK did it well, the credit still went to the Golden Arches.

The Idea can make excuses for bad service, can create new markets and can even make your competitor’s work sell your product.

The Pitch:Episode 1. Think Fresh. Buy Stale.

This article may be a spoiler for The Pitch, but The Pitch is a spoiler for agencies and the Idea.

Here’s the episode if you haven’t seen it: http://www.amctv.com/shows/the-pitch

The conceit is a bit fake: a major assignment for a big client that doesn’t include a digital component and only five days with no paying work to do for current clients.

OK. It’s reality TV not reality.

But what happens here is a pretty good analogy for the problems the agency world is facing.

As clients see less and less value in long-term relationships, they look to buy individual ideas from a wide roster of agencies and freelancers. The concept of a “tournament of ideas” plays well to their bosses. “Look at how many brains we have working our problem.”

The problem isn’t with the idea generation. The problem is that in this competition both on TV and in the real boardroom, Ideas don’t win. Clients pick the safe, the trite, the hackneyed or the derivative—never the new.

The Idea is uncomfortable. Clients buy the Idea from a trusted partner who lives and dies with them. The Idea is a risk. And this way of choosing creative doesn’t reward risk.

So Subway ends up with an idea that McKinney literally took from YouTube. They had half a million dollars worth of “creative” talent in the room and the best they could come up with was, “I saw this guy on YouTube.”

In the follow up interview, the client as much as said that zAMbies was the most intrusive Idea, but he said he chose McKinney because he “could see lots of possibilities for Freestyle Breakfast.”

Yes. He gravitated to a place where he felt comfortable. The client said he wanted "not the Same ol’ Subway." But what he eventually bought was stuff he felt comfortable with.

Look, I don’t think zAMbies is the Just Do It of QSR breakfasts, but white guy rapping ingredients to a breakfast sandwich is the equivalent of that Subway CMO kickin’ it at a Skrillex show. It’s uncomfortable, wrong and rings false to the 18-24 year olds who it is supposed to appeal to.

The Pitch shows how clients, with the best intentions, make the poor decisions; how the Idea is being overshadowed by millions of YouTube views or some other metric that MBAs use to show their own worth; and how broken the agency business is.

When I saw the people at McKinney back at their office celebrating and hugging and patting each other on the back, I was repulsed. Their one idea, talking food, was an awful execution of a solid line, “Let’s fix breakfast.” The winning concept was such borrowed interest that it wasn't a surprise that the Creative Director would say to camera, “We’ll just have to wait until Wednesday to see what he (the rapper) comes up with.”

So the value of an agency is that it scours YouTube for talent? Then it turns the complete creative control over to a guy whose only credentials were that he rapped about pancakes? Then they get awarded the business?

From a business perspective, I can understand why everyone involved played along with The Pitch. Subway got a one-hour product placement. Both agencies got paid and got incredible coverage.

Going in, I thought it would be difficult to rebound from a broadcasted loss for the agencies. But now that I see the way WDCG and McKinney work, I would say it would be even harder to bounce back from the win.

WDGC lost The Pitch, but delivered an Idea. McKinney won The Pitch, but, I believe, they showed themselves to be creatively vacuous. 

And the real loser was Subway which ended up with a terrible execution of a bad concept.

Let’s hope future CMO’s use the venue of this TV show to try something risky, to move away from the seen and to force agencies to come up with brilliance—not just recycled crap.

 

Social. You are doing it wrong.

I’ve been reading about the latest trends in Social Media. Some experts are pointing out that many brands are just using Social as a new place for broadcast messages.

Interesting. When you don’t have an Idea and you just talk about your products all the time, you are using Social as Broadcast.

Look back at your last couple of tweets/FB posts and see if you are simply broadcasting your products and services or are you engaging your customers in a dialog?

Bring some relevance to your product. Make your service mean something. Help your prospects and customers for a relationship with you.

Like the early stages of dating, bring flowers, put on your good shirt and talk about them.

Print out your Company’s profile and highlight product statements. If there are no consumer benefits there, you are doing it wrong 

Build On Your Wins.

I was talking to a small businessman this week about his marketing. Of course, I asked him what his Idea was. What was his one dollar difference? And he hemmed and hawed.

I could tell it was hard for him to think of a differentiator. He said, “In a way, it’s like trying to predict the future.”

Well, let’s take an easier path. Let’s connect the dots of your successful sales last year. He had 20 of them. Let’s see what each of those 20 might have in common, then let’s find ways to do more of that.

Sometimes you can create an Idea for a business or a product. Sometimes you just have to recognize it. If you are having problems defining your niche, whether you are a big company with lots of customers or a small one with just a few, look at your successes and see what consistencies you can draw from them.

You don’t have to predict the future if you have a strong understanding of the past.