In case you missed it, I was interviewed by new biz guru, Jody Sutter, this week on her LinkedIn Live show, “Just Ask Jody.” We talked about advertising new business tips and tricks as well as some old war stories. Click to watch.
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Sounds sorta nuts, right? To ask something as abstract and ill-defined as a “brand” a question? Preposterous, really. But perhaps it’s only preposterous because your brand is too abstract and ill-defined. When a brand idea is formed and articulated powerfully and clearly, then it becomes easy for every employee, regardless of their role, to channel that brand idea into everything they do. Here’s what I mean and why it matters.
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I have fractional relationships with brands and agencies advising on branding, strategies, and market opportunities. However, I also bring with me the best creative people in the advertising industry. Whenever and wherever they're needed.
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Language is powerful. It’s the fabric of our thoughts. It’s how we transfer thoughts from one person to another. It’s used to generate movements, inspire emotion, record history, establish and reinforce culture. Yet, some language can also entrap us, even enslave us if we let it. Particularly when a phrase is repeated so often it becomes common knowledge and is no longer questioned. Below are three such phrases we hear so frequently that through repetition have become “conventional wisdom,” but I believe, sadly, also crush our motivation to remain curious.
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Stephanie Greene, or Steph as I now call her, is the Chief Marketing Officer of an innovative body sculpting company called AirSculpt. She’s an ideal client for Ideasicle X because she wanted big-time creative thinking, but didn’t have a big-time budget. Which is exactly what we provide, enabled by our 100% virtual model with access to 40+ creative super friends. Specifically, she wanted to rebuild her brand from the ground up. And quickly.
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As you may know, I enjoy studying creativity. The importance of it, the psychology of it, the ways to improve it. I have a whole page on this company’s site devoted to scientific studies around improving our creativity (view that here). So as part of this study I wanted to ask real people whose creativity is their professional product. What their hints, secrets, and rituals were when it comes to creativity. And who better to ask than my own Ideasicle Experts? The question I posed to them: “How do you create?” We got some surprising, funny, and insightful answers.
Read MoreI met Copacino & Fujikado’s Executive Creative Director, Mike Hayward, in 2015 when I spoke at a MAGNET conference. In January, Mike subscribed and tried his first Ideasicle X project. While he can’t share the client or details about the assignment, Mike was kind enough to share quite a bit about his experience and even provide advice to future Ideasicle customers. Take it away, Mike.
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The pressure to perform creatively under time constraints creates a sense of urgency and stress, which, according to three separate studies, impacts creative thinking. But it’s not all bad, and the findings suggest an optimum approach to idea generation when the pressure’s on.
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Coming up with ideas remotely is unavoidable these days with hybrid work becoming more and more the norm. But that doesn’t mean the quality of your, and your partners’, ideas must suffer. 2024 can be the year to embrace remote idea generation. Here are three best practices (and worst) we’ve learned first-hand about participating in remote creative sessions that you can start using today.
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If you ask the great Rick Rubin, he’d likely say ideas exist already outside of space/time and when their time has come enter our three-dimensional universe through…someone, anyone whose vibration matches that of the idea. Deep stuff, for sure. It seems to me that, since we can’t force an idea to happen, all we can do is increase the odds of one happening. So I looked at Ideasicle X anew to see if and how, exactly, it increases the odds of great ideas. Here are three ways I came up with.
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One of the things the great Rick Rubin talks about in his new book relates to fear and how important it is to, as he puts it, “Create an environment where you’re free to express what you were afraid to express.” This statement challenged me to think about how Ideasicle X mitigates creative fear. Here are three tangible ways the IX model minimizes fear among the team of four.
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When agencies need freelancers they need them yesterday, not three days later after they’ve been called, negotiated with, W9s received, an office found for them to work, hotels to put them up, etc. What if freelance talent could be intimately integrated into an agency’s existing creative process, where teams who know your client’s business are but keystrokes away at any given moment and could be coming up with ideas within hours not days? Well, we have the meats.
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We have always believed the client should be excited about the advertising ideas we bring them. Why not? It’s their company. Not to mention it’s nearly impossible to sell in an idea the client simply doesn’t like. But we have discovered, quite by accident, a question—a magic question—the answer to which not only may shed light on a client’s creative biases, but provides you and your creative teams a map of landmines.
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I feel sorry for ad agencies these days. Fees aren’t increasing, staff is getting harder to find, and the staff they have is stretched. Worse, agencies are still battling with the inertia of remote work, leaving their talent all over the place. While we can’t solve all the problems agencies face today, we can help address the challenges of remote work when it comes to creative ideas.
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Firebrand is the combination of Ideasicle X, our virtual web application designed for virtual idea generation, Ernie Schenck, renowned and award winning creative director and writer, and Conductor, a full service production company, with the singular aim of developing brand ideas with A-list creative talent all the way through to a brand anthem video, and all for $100,000. Here’s how it came to be.
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I have an idea for Zillow that I think could increase their revenue substantially, effectively creating an entirely new channel for advertising. The idea has been collecting pixel-dust on my hard drive for at least a year, and I don’t have the time to identify the right people, beat down their doors and get this idea in front of them. So instead I’m simply going to post the idea below. That’s right, I’m going to give the idea away.
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Clients can be quick to question the cost of agencies coming up with ideas. What’s the blended rate you’re billing me? Why do you need three teams working on this? Explain to me the overhead you charge every month. Can’t blame them, really. It is important to keep all marketing costs in check. But what about the cost of NOT having a great idea? Why don’t clients ever ask that question? Well, I asked a few of my Ideasicle Experts to identify ideas they’ve been a part of, the absence of which would have blunted the trajectory of a client’s business.
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Last week I wrote a blog post introducing our newest Ideasicle Expert, Matt Lindley, to the world (here’s the post). Since then we got a wildly urgent call from an agency who needed ideas in 24 hours. We don’t typically do ProXy Service projects that quickly, but we confidently accepted the challenge. I invited Matt to this project for a couple reasons: one, he’s not only creative but he’s super quick; two, I wanted to get him some experience on the platform. Frankly, I was a little nervous about what his reaction would be to the platform. Matt’s last 14 years has been at digital giants, Sapient Razorfish and (gulp) Google/YouTube.
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I’ve known Matt for nearly 20 years and have been after him to be an Expert here since I launched in 2010. While at Arnold Worldwide, we pitched and won Vonage, Progressive Insurance, and the RadioShack business, then the largest win in New England history. I always wanted Matt on the pitch team because he has this uncanny super power to disarm his audience with charm, creativity, and, most importantly, ideas. Since Arnold, Matt spent many valuable years entrenched within the Google/YouTube technosphere. Which brings us to his story about the four hour ad. Over to you, Matt.
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In my three decade career in the advertising business, I’ve worked at eight agencies in five cities. There wasn’t a single agency who didn’t, at times, go outside to get creative ideas. It’s not ideal, of course. Agencies want to use their own people whenever possible. It’s more profitable. But here are three cases where going outside is the right business decision.
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