Ideas that create business

26th Feb 2010 A passion and truth by Chris

Photo by Gene Hunt

What’s an idea? It’s one of the most overused words in our industry and quite possibly one of the least understood. Just like us, ideas come in all shapes and sizes; there’s the idea for the logo, the layout, the design, the headline, the payoff, the in-store experience, the website, the TV spot, the viral, the PR stunt, the radio ad, the poster, the press ad.

But these are all executional, tactical and channel ideas and if we’re not careful they can end up running around bumping into each other, causing chaos and confusion in our communication and even worse, the same in our customers.

So let’s instead consider the idea that sits above these, the one that unifies and aligns all our communications and channels, the one that helps create business: our big organising idea.

What makes an idea ‘big’? And more importantly why do we need one in the first place? After all, doesn’t big equal expensive? It certainly sounds it!

The simple answer to that is no, because it’s not about asking our clients to outspend their competition, it’s about us helping them to out think them and a big organising idea can help us do that. And not just in marketing terms, by helping to create the desired change in behaviour through a mix of communication messages, channel planning and excellence in creative execution, but importantly also in business operations terms, by helping shape offers, create products and suggest credible brand extensions.

It was a big organising idea that repositioned The AA from roadside recovery to the fourth emergency service. In short, big organising ideas not only help create business they can, if desired, also help shape a business for even more success going forward.

Having talked about what a big organising idea can do, the question is how do we know when we have got one. At WAA we believe it has to have all of the following elements:

• It needs to talk to the head, the hand and the heart, and have legs. In the head it needs to create top-of-mind awareness and tip-of-tongue talkabilty, while the hand is an experiential element that allows the customer to experience it for themselves. The heart symbolizes an emotional connection between customer and brand, and it has to have the legs to work across every channel and run over time. Think Tesco’s ‘Every Little Helps’.

• It needs to be based on a strong consumer insight not just a product proposition or over-claim. Innocent Drinks is an example of a big idea that grew out of a great consumer insight - that the way we live today makes it so hard to be healthy. Their big idea was to make it easy for us to live healthier (and enjoy tastier lives) without having to go to the gym.

• It needs to be as simple and motivating for customers to physically do as it is for them to understand. A great example of this is Boots' big idea ‘Change One Thing’, which was about inspiring us to make single minded New Year resolutions and then helping us to achieve them, be it stopping drinking, giving up smoking, or losing weight.

• It needs to inspire strategic direction not dictate creative execution. That is it needs to behave a lot more like Apple and a lot less like Aviva.

And above all…

• … it needs to create business.

Having created and agreed our big idea, then is the time to bring it to life in the heads, hearts and hands of customers; through strong, simple and compelling creative execution. It is this perfect combination of big thinking and creative cut through that makes ideas not only stick out amongst the thousands of messages we are bombarded with everyday, but even more importantly makes a business or brand stand out in terms of its long term success.

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