Big ideas, damp squibs, and a bridge too far...

Two words.

Six letters.

579 billion possibilities.

What if…

The kind of phrase that unbuckles the straitjackets, opens the windows, and lets the fresh air in.

The kind of phrase that ramps up the speed limit on the highway that leads from the parietal lobe up to the occipital lobe in our cerebral cortex. You know…that spongy bit of grey matter that sits between our ears.

The kind of phrase that sits at the heart of every work of fiction (and some would say fact) created by every writer who ever lived. The kind of phrase that lets the imagination off the leash and gives it the freedom to go wherever the Hell it wants to.

For instance…

What if…you could take key elements of the plays of William Shakespeare and blend them into the most successful space movie franchises of all time?

What if… you could create a device that fits in your pocket and is MILLIONS of times smarter than all the computers used on the Apollo moon landing in the 60s?

What if…agencies stopped wasting billions making ads that were dull and uninspiring, and started investing billions telling stories that were fascinating, motivating, and empowering?

What if…NO creative director, writer, art director, visualizer, digital designer, senior, junior, tea or coffee making junior, could begin any piece of work without a comprehensive, well-written, briefing document. Printed out on paper and signed off.

Ever!

Hang on…that last one might be a bridge too far.

Ok. How about this, then…

The late, great, Bill Bernbach said, and I quote, “Advertising is fundamentally persuasion…and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art.”

Which means it’s less about how many cans of beans you can sell…and more about how many cans of beans you can persuade folk to buy.

And here’s another What If.

A big one.

What if…Creative Departments everywhere refused to produce any piece of work until they were absolutely, positively, unquestionably sure that it had a big idea somewhere inside it?

What? Another bridge too far?

Okay. Fine. Here’s another ‘late, great’ quote instead.

This one’s from David Ogilvy.

You might have heard of him.

It goes like this…

“It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night. I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea.”

One in a bloody hundred.

Just think about that for a minute.

Now think about this.

Way back on March 2016, media research agency ZenithOptimedia reported that global advertising expenditure was on course to grow 4.6% to $579 BILLION that year. Up from 3.9% growth the previous year.

Imagine the whole of the fiscal defense budget for the USA for 2017.

Or a space the size of a football field stacked over 6 ft. high with ￡100 dollar bills.

That’s roughly what $579 billion would look like.

Give or take.

And not more than one campaign in 100 has a big idea.

That’s not a lot of bang for our advertising bucks.

In fact it’s more like a damp bloody squib.

Here’s a thought.

What if…big ideas were compulsory?

Not merely optional.

What if they were at the core of every piece of creative work?

Not just at the core of the best of them.

Or is that just another damned bridge too far?

******************************************************

The above is an extract from my book Ad Lib. Like its sisters Ad Hoc, and Ad Infinitum, and Ad Interruptus (still in the melting pot), it's about creativity, advertising, life, and lots of stuff in between.

You'll find the first three, along with my other books, Love & Coffee and Heaven Help Us. In print and ebook. Waiting for you. Just look here:

Ad Lib: https://amzn.to/2kd4LKf.

Ad Hoc: https://amzn.to/2Nx8GL8

Love & Coffee: https://amzn.to/28IWaHq

Heaven Help Us: https://amzn.to/2nkQ1Jk

So grab a coffee, grab a chair, and grab a sneaky peek.

Then grab a copy...like...now!