Silver Bullet Part Two

The great idea as a silver bullet may sound simplistic. But if you know me, or read me, you know that I believe in simple. Details might get complicated, but strong building blocks are pretty much always simple concepts. Most of Star Wars is just 0’s and 1’s.

Simple isn’t always easy, though, and the hard part here is understanding that a great idea isn’t a great TV concept. A TV concept might be part of it, but the idea has to cross boundaries. Everything matters when you’re building a brand – from the TV spot to the nametags on employee uniforms. A truly great idea crosses all those boundaries. Or it, at the very least, is something people don’t expect.

Ad agencies are filled with the kinds of people who, theoretically, should be just the right ones to think up great ideas. At their core, the basic skill agency thinkers possess is an ability to talk to and persuade people via the combination of words, images, music, pixels, and other stuff. The problem is, they’ve become accustomed to thinking in 30 seconds, or full-page bleeds, or one of the other four formats they understand how to make themselves – and have been making for a long time. They start the thinking process with traditional forms.

The argument from agency people I talk to is, “we know how to make TV – so we think in TV. In order to come up with web, or viral, or guerrilla, or product design or customer interaction ideas, we’d have to know how to make all those things happen, too.”

And they do try to learn all those things. But they do it by building dedicated departments, designed to execute one format. So now, instead of starting their thinking with a TV spot, the interactive department always begins thinking with a web execution.

There’s a flaw in the argument. The flaw is agencies thinking they know all about how to make TV spots. Or print ads. Or whatever. Truth is, they don’t. What they do know is who to hire.

I can tell you, from running two production companies, that real agency knowledge of production is, even at the highest levels, small. I’m sure the really good printers out there can say the same thing about the printing process. It’s like I told an agency producer once, before hiring him as an executive producer – there’s stuff behind the curtain. Just because you eat out all the time doesn’t mean you can run a restaurant. He quickly found out I was right. When I made the move from Creative Director to Director, I thought I knew everything about how to make a TV commercial. I didn’t know anything.

So the truth is, agencies actually excel in creating ideas they don’t really know how to execute themselves. Once they realize that, they realize their thinking doesn’t have to be bound by traditional formats. And better ideas start to happen.

This isn’t to say that non-traditional advertising is better than traditional stuff. That’s not my point. My point is that everything gets better when the thinking begins unencumbered by formula. I just don’t think most agencies are set up to think that way. Yet.