Making Better Smaller Ideas
Interesting discussion out at Edward Boches Creativity Unbound blog on how important it is these days to get smaller ideas working better. In an age where many people are writing off big ideas (This is a great read from BBH Labs) as irrelevant, Ed feels that there’s not a brand out there that does not think it is important to have a big idea. But since they are so rare and elusive, maybe we need to get really good smaller ideas that build into the big brand thought. It was Russell Davies who started this debate in 2006, in a post called the Tyranny of the big idea, where he wrote that the first and foremost thing a brand needs to do is to be interesting. And interesting by saying new things or old things in new ways. So you go out and create smaller ideas that build into the big mother theme. In fact reading Russell’s post again, I discovered an interesting nugget that could become a whole post by itself. The politics of a big idea, on how when agencies and marketing departments think they have nailed a big idea, they just get stuck to it as if it is gospel and by the time they discover the big idea isn’t working anymore, it’s all too late for the brand. Russell has some advice on how to constantly create a bunch of small ideas. There are lots of interesting bits on ideas big and small and how maybe we could go out and get them right. Also don’t miss out on the comments under each of these posts. We think questioning the big idea is like shaking up the foundations of our business and many people have extreme views on this one. As we discovered on Ed’s post.
