Big Idea kickers, Big Idea killers

Do you find your stomach crumbling, your arms twisting, your teeth gnashing, your knees trembling, your sweat pouring unceasingly, and your eyes staring blankly? Your mind stops functioning and your heart starts palpitating faster than usual. Nothing is working. No, you are not dying. You’re STUCK! In such predicament, what do you do? You can either sit still, do nothing and wait for the storm to pass, try even harder to break the walls, or search for an idea that can disrupt the norm.

The creative function of the mind is not easy to explain. As psychologists explain, it belongs in the part of the human brain that is not logical, rational and analytical, but abstract, intuitive and non-linear. It dies on us if not properly nourished and nurtured, but works excellently and actively when appropriately motivated. Don’t you get surprised, when, at some point, you find yourself exclaiming–"eureka, I found it," or "it just popped into my head"? You probably don’t really know how you did it, but it just came to be.

Seeing Patterns And Connections

Daydreaming is crucial to the development of a Big Idea. The myth goes that creative people either lie back and let the muse come to them, or force it out through hard work and lengthy trial and error. The reality is somewhere between the two – a combination of inspiration and evaluation, and then crafting it into shape.

Creativity is largely about being able to see patterns and connections that you and others had not detected before. And if you fail to see the connections you become fastened, cuffed, and fixed in a wall of nothingness. Capturing the elusive Big Idea is all about change – changing the way we look at things, changing the way we do things. This change can release you from the bondage of emptiness, and arm you with an arsenal of creativity that cuts through and burns. As Miles David said, "If anyone wants to keep creating, they have to be about change."

Finding the Big Idea is a most demanding chore. It requires a lot of curiosity. It allows you to seek out what is right with the idea, even if the idea has already been rejected. For all you know, a rejection from one can be an acceptance from another. An idea is seen as big or Lilliputian, extraordinary or mediocre depending on how the beholders see it.

Getting Back The Kick

When you get stuck, the great challenge is how to get back the all-important kick. There are a number of recognized, well-used techniques to spark the creative process, help you create the right mental environment, and lead you to Big Idea fluency. The techniques can be as simple and unstructured as Brainstorming, methodical as Mind Mapping, fun-filled as Brand Characterization, or as stimulating as Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats.

There are other easy ways to spark the creative fire. In fact in an on-going survey being done by Charles Thompson, author of What a Great Idea, it was listed, in diminishing order of usefulness, that the 10 activities where you can generate new, and hopefully, Big Ideas include: cutting the grass, listening to a church sermon, walking in the middle of the night, exercising, reading, making it through a boring meeting, falling asleep or waking up, sitting on the toilet, driving, or taking a bath or a shower. The least likely place that a creative muse can visit you was at your desk at work. Imagine yourself staring at a clutter of things on your table, and watch this gazing lead you to a state of brain-draining numbness.

Wearing The Curiosity Hat

When faced with a great creative challenge, you must ask an equally great question, wear your "curiosity hat," and consider what the problem is similar to. As Thompson avers, "Solutions that come from a uniqueness perspective can add lasting value where the easy-way-out, textbook solution can sometimes lead right back in." You need to challenge the rules with thought-provoking inquiries, looking for several right answers, and discovering the one Big Idea that can illuminate your creative skyline.

Plato enthused, "It is better to answer one question eight different ways, than eight different questions one way." You must encourage the flow of new ideas, challenge the sacred ones, think outside the lines of your budgets and responsibilities, and allow reverie even during work hours.

Thinking In Opposites

As advertising practitioners, you can use reverse thinking to seize human attention. By holding opposites together, you can suspend your thoughts, and your mind moves to a new level. Leonardo da Vinci believed that the first way he looked at a problem was too biased towards his usual way of seeing things. Pablo Picasso believed in opposites. He stated, "Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction."

Sample applications of the opposite formula, as Thompson reveals, cover these principles. First, in writing a communications program, instead of asking what the problem is, maybe you can ask, "What isn’t my problem?" Second, you can apply "flip-flop" actions and ask, "What would I never do?" Third, you can put yourself in the shoes of people from outside and ask, "What advertising solutions can I create that will capture my existing market shares and sales?" And fourth, snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, and ask, "Can you do that?"

Killing The Big Idea

Every major advertising agency follows a creative discipline that facilitates the more effective discovery of the Big Idea for each significant campaign that it is tasked to handle. The promise of a "rose garden" however, is not always manifested in the development process. In reality, there will always be opposing parties that will openly proclaim what is wrong with a new idea being tossed on the table. Expressions of opposition can be captured in this list of "killer phrases" as compiled in Thompson’s continuing research. The parenthetical blurbs are this writer’s repartee. They were made to ward off the temptation of using these deadly expressions as the active pursuit for the elusive Big Idea continues.

• It will never work (What a bummer! We need some optimism around here right?)

• I don’t have time (Everyone has the time to deliver, it’s a firm commitment that we usually lack.)

• It’s not in the budget (Come on, ideas so big deserve generous logistical support)

• We tried that before (Nothing is really original in this world, only new combinations formed every time we move the creative kaleidoscope.)

• That sounds like my kids would say (Your kids’ insight can be the best insight.)

• Let’s get a committee to look into this (Remember a camel is a horse designed by a committee.)

• Because I said so (In a brainstorming process, never barge your way in.)

• Great idea, but not for us (What’s good for you then? More often you know what you don’t want, not what you want.)

• You’re too young (Creativity knows no age.)

• If it ain’t broke…(Go ahead break it.)

• We’ve always done it this way (Get out of your comfort zone. There is a whole lot of fun waiting for you outside the box.)

• I’ll get back to you (Make it quick. Competition might just beat you to it.)

• No! (You might just regret it forever.)

• Do you realize the paper it will create? (Yes, and it can accumulate a mountain of ideas)

• It’s not your responsibility (Then whose?)

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Against this theoretical framework, the 18th Philippine Advertising Congress will be designed to help spark the creative process in every facet of the advertising work. It may not readily have ideas for you, but it can help create the right creative environment that can allow the freer flow of Big Ideas, help solve complex marketing communications problems, spawn new business opportunities, develop new products and services, and improve existing offerings. All these, without a doubt, can provide new stimulation, purvey fresh vibrancy, and open ground breaking thoughts and processes for the advertising industry.

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For comments and questions, e-mail bongo@vasia.com or bongo@campaigns andgrey.net