What American Brands Need Now Is A Big Idea. How Does 11 Sound?
A couple weeks ago I wrote an opinion piece called “American Brands Suddenly Have a Trump Card: Here's How To Take Advantage.” In it, I recommended that American brands band together, pool their money, and create an advertising campaign that inspires American consumers to buy American brands. A campaign that avoided politics and appealed to our sense of belonging here in the USofA. Fact is, I have access to some of the greatest creatives in the business here at Ideasicle X. I fielded a team of four volunteers, briefed them, and they wielded their magic.
What follows are 11 of the campaign ideas this brilliant team came up with. Below that is how we did it, a video of the actual Idea Stream where the magic happened, and a link to see what the “client presentation” would have looked like. A real look under the hood of a typical Ideasicle “IX Concierge” project.
The creative strategy: don’t get political
The vibe of the idea needed to be “we’re all in this together,” and not taking a side politically. We want people to be left rooting for their fellow Americans and their brands. The call to action for the campaign is purely utilitarian, revolving around a website we’d build where consumers can actively search for American brands by category (e.g. tires, sneakers, refrigerators, etc.) and the site would list all the American brands within those categories. Search product, find product, then learn where you can purchase (“near me”), and even coupons as a reward. The url is: www.americanbrandstand.com. Here’s the creative brief for the ad campaign to drive traffic to that site:
Note: our creative briefs are green because of this study that suggests the color green primes people to be more creative.
11 advertising campaign Ideas
The creative team of four came up with over 30 ideas on the Idea Stream (see team and video below for more on that). Then we went back and forth to choose the best 10-12 and landed on the following 11. My philosophy for campaign development is “more ideas, skin deep.” Meaning, I’d rather the client sees 11 campaign ideas that are fleshed out just enough to evaluate their merit and no more, than wasting time blowing out just a few ideas the client may reject. We can develop the ideas further later. So you’ll see a range of “finish,” where some ideas just describe the concept and others have a first script.
Here they are (click to enlarge):
We need your help
Two ways you can help get one of these campaigns produced:
One, if you know people in relevant high places who may be interested please forward to them this blog post. Anyone at BrandUSA, the Chamber of Commerce, Ford Foundation, MAM (Made in America Movement), National Association of Manufacturers, or even a large American brand who has the clout to organize a new group of American brands (hey Ford, talking to you since you’ve already begun this process in your own advertising).
Two, if you don’t know anyone, but love a couple of the ideas above, please copy the idea images (you have our permission!), post to the whole wide world over your socials, and tag Ideasicle X or me (Will Burns). Never know who might see them. The universe works in mysterious ways, amiright?
Or do both!
The Ideasicle Experts
Three creatives and a media guy. What a team we fielded. Keep in mind all of these guys volunteered for this assignment.
Ernie Schenck, Creative Director, Writer, Legend, https://strangealchemy1.substack.com/
Roger Baldacci, Creative Director, Writer, Ball Carrier. https://rogerbaldacci.com
Clark Shepard, Creative Director, Writer, http://www.clarkshepard.com
Mike LaBella, Media Expert, Jets Fan, https://twitter.com/uncovrmedia
I want to publicly thank these guys for their time, their creativity, and their ability to motivate themselves for this cause without pay. Fun fact: this was Clark’s very first Ideasicle X project (and he knocked it out of the park). Big thanks to Alyssa Toro of Connelly Partners for recommending him.
The creative presentation
Click to see entire presentation
Of course, we have no client for this (yet), but I wanted to share exactly how we will present these ideas to a client in case you’re curious. Click the cover image to the left to see the entire pdf. Feel free to forward that to the whole wide world, too.
the idea stream (a look under the hood)
Below is a short video I created sharing what the Ideasicle X platform looks like when a team of four geniuses combine efforts, post ideas, build on each other’s ideas, a riff up new ones.
Will Burns shares the actual Idea Stream from the American Brand Stand project.
Let us know which ideas you think are the strongest in the comments below. We had a lot of fun preparing these ideas. We hope one will see the light of day and help sell more American brands. Now we just hope the universe will conspire to help us get them in front of the right people.
Nothing is unthinkable.
Will Burns is the Founder & CEO of the revolutionary virtual-idea-generating company, Ideasicle X. He’s an advertising veteran from such agencies as Wieden & Kennedy, Goodby Silverstein, Arnold Worldwide, and Mullen. He was a Forbes Contributor for nine years writing about creativity in modern branding. Sign up for the Ideasicle Newsletter and never miss a post like this. Will’s bio.