Where do good ideas come from?

There’s a lot of high-flown stuff about creativity and ideas these days.?Brainstorming’s back, Sprints are hot and they have whole conferences about Behavioural science.

Met a guy once who said he specialised in breaking paradigms.?And someone else who wore a T-shirt broadcasting ‘Outside-the-box thinker’.

So I got to thinking.?I’ve been in the ideas business for the past 50 years.?And some of the ideas worked quite well.?Where did they come from?

Looking back, I’m forced to admit that they came from INSIDE the proverbial box.?They were based on logic, common sense, looking and remembering. And maybe some of that adrenaline you get when you're afraid to fail.

Take Baileys.?The idea was inspired by my experience working on Kerrygold a decade earlier and triggered by my partner asking, “What happens if we mix Irish cream and Irish whiskey?”?It was a case of putting together things that were already there.?Inside the box.

Or Smirnoff Black.?How could dull old supermarket Smirnoff compete with exciting, stylish Absolut??The answer, by borrowing a word that was owned by dark spirits like whisky and brandy.?Smooth.?We set out to offer the world’s smoothest vodka.

And where did the idea come from??It was there already. Inside the box, again.

The idea behind Tanqueray Ten was for a fresher, cleaner-tasting gin.?And where did it come from??It came, again, from inside the box.?It was based on the belief that gin could be too challenging and bitter for non-drinkers. And to broaden its appeal, we needed a product that was easier to like.

That came from a couple of comments about gin expressed by non-drinkers in an out-of-date research report.?Very much an inside-the-box idea.

Job done.?Not a brainstorm, a sprint or a Behavioural scientist in sight.

Sheridan’s was a ‘seat-of-pants’ idea dreamed up over 15 minutes walking to a meeting.?It was based on something I remembered when I was a child.?Luckily, the person I presented to had the nous to buy it on the spot.?It was logical, not magical.

Back in the day, my daughter, aged 2, had trouble cutting up her fish fingers.?That triggered the idea for small bite-size pieces, of chicken not, fish.?We were working for Birds Eye at the time and they launched Chicklets – an early version of the Chicken Nugget.

Some thoughts to leave with you :

1.??????In my book ‘crowd-think’ never works.?As soon as someone suggests sprints or brainstorms or collectives, keep your money in your pocket and head for lunch.

2.??????The business of ideas is not a democracy.?The more people invited to engage in an idea, the more certain it is to fail.

3.??????Whether you’re buying ideas or selling them, one answer is the only game in town.?As soon as someone offers you a variety of solutions, hold onto your money belt.?If there is more than one solution, there is no solution.

4.??????Never, ever ask panels of consumers to choose between a selection of ideas.?The most boring, familiar idea will be the winner. Consumers like what they know.

5.??????And finally, an idea is only as good as the person on the other side of the table says it is.?If you are not on the same wavelength as the person who commissions the idea, don’t bother.?It’s never going to work.

For the full story behind all these brands and many more, read my book “That s*it will never sell!” which you can preview on www.thatshitwillneversell.com and order from the website or Amazon.