DISPELLING THE MYTH OF INSTANT IDEAS

TV shows such as Mad Men help support the notion that advertising people grab their ideas virtually out of thin air. If you’re zany enough or “mad” enough you come up with ideas to any challenge if you just think hard enough. And drink lots of whiskey in the middle of the day. 

Of course, to those of us who help clients consistently increase their businesses, nothing could be further from the truth. Getting great results means following a strict strategic and creative process that turns up an insight, which leads to a strategy and a big idea that engages prospects. Otherwise, it’s a roll of the dice, a shot in the dark and you’ll come up unlucky and broke more often than not. The worst gamblers are the ones who get lucky early and think it is their own prowess that got them there. 

Today there are more opportunities than ever to engage audiences by being what they are interested in, rather than interrupting them. Only when that technology is matched with a single-minded, intelligently well-thought out strategy and an engaging idea can you outsmart competitors. In fact, if competitors haven’t engaged a disciplined agency, chances are they’ll have to massively outspend you to keep up. And, they can’t keep that up for long.