Commentary

Regarding Your Brilliant Idea

In business ventures, we always honor the good idea and applaud the brilliant one -- but these times give new weight to the idea that sticks and actually makes things happen. We've all been asked for the Big Idea, scrambled for a better idea, scratched our head over an "off" idea, or spent time vetting the originality of someone else's prescribed brainchild. The standard frankly has gotten higher and more specific. The "idea" that comes off-the-cuff, overnight, at the team meeting, on the train, in client confab, under fire, or while ideating with your brood -- has to do something to take flight, when the stakes are up and the game is on. What's an idea got to do?

 

Reduce noise. Our markets are noisy with competition -- real and perceived. An approach that clarifies brand position or helps a brand persist is valuable anytime. But it is especially valuable when all channels are coursing with activity, as they are right now. So, solid ideas on how to more clearly convey brand personality, deliver incisive messaging, or simply keep lucid and clear in one's marketing execution go a long way toward dimming the noise that potentially hampers us day in and day out.

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Organize the disparate. I think about the client side on this one, an environment with such an array of organization and models all over the place. I've spent some time looking at brands that have evolved in this cross-channel time and are managing marketing and platforms with purpose and cohesion. You also see those that somehow maintain despite themselves through managed chaos -- with a galaxy of agencies and third parties, strange internal org and very siloed efforts.

 The same contrast of course also exists on the agency side. While clean, progressive org does not necessarily beget elegantly concerted marketing efforts, ideas that get us closer to a symphony of cross-channel efforts would be music to our ears. Ideas that help course-correct and knit together disparate efforts into something programmatic, would and should be welcome.

Take more of the market. No matter what you have going on, there is keen appeal to having more of the market at rapt attention. Merger and acquisition ideas aside for the moment, it may be the simple ideas that get you to a better place: tying together search and display or search and social; using more of the channels and methods available to you; focusing on infiltrating the search marketplace, through a well-executed, blended effort; collaborating more effectively between TV and digital arms at your company on creative and storytelling. The list goes on and on.

Differentiate. This one sounds obvious, but it means more than the trite one-word command to do so. Having enough self-awareness to step outside your pitch on your niche and make sure it's differentiated takes discipline and multi-sourcing. I have worked with clients who seemed so oblivious to the noise around them, it was unfathomable. Further, their own recital did not include a single clear point of differentiation. It makes one sweat to listen.

Other times, I have been pleasantly surprised to discover a ripe niche right before my eyes in a sea of presumed "been-there-done-that." Amid brands that are everything to everyone, you might find an opportunity to engage a totally fresh slice of the market, if you cut it differently. Sometimes something so different is so close you can't see it. But the investigation of real differentiation is essential to deriving actionable ideas to deliver on that uniqueness.

Apply creativity to a business solution. Many of us crave creativity. Many of us crave accountability. When the two meet, it's a win. On a personal level, I recall reentering the arena of broader digital again, after three years immersed in search, as everything was starting to thrive again. I was craving daily reexposure to creative sessions, reading scripts and channel planning. Flash forward to now, and there's more co-conspiring between creativity and performance, brand and direct response. Ideas that take flight now tend to be creative executions of the practical.

Solve a business problem. This one is timeless. Or, it should be, as a personal, professional imperative. It's a great start to articulate clear strategy and approach. But, back up. Don't take it for granted, but ask: What business problem are you solving? Ideas that stem from that requirement have heart, if not legs. Their intention is pure, so to speak.

We've all dealt with clients, partners and associates drunk on the prospect of the Big Idea. We've all lost sleep trying to predict a bullseye overnight. In the end, though, it's the idea that fulfills on salient purpose that alights. 

5 comments about "Regarding Your Brilliant Idea".
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  1. John Jainschigg from World2Worlds, Inc., October 5, 2009 at 10:53 a.m.

    I love your writing! It sounds as though your last paragraph was first imagined as a brace of couplets in the style of Emily Dickenson, e.g.:

    Sleep shuns we few who seek to limn
    A bullseye overnight.
    But Salient Purpose shines within
    The Fancy that alights.

  2. Paula Lynn from Who Else Unlimited, October 5, 2009 at 11:02 a.m.

    Another one for the permant wall, Kendall !

  3. Bruce Christensen from PartyWeDo, October 5, 2009 at 11:02 a.m.

    Solving an online business problem is a number one thought these days. I am glad that have you added it into your listing here. I
    n this economy of shrinking adverting budgets, social networks have a big business problem that is looking for an equality big idea.

    Most online networks are challenged to produce a sustainable business model. I think that a couple of "brilliant idea" are laying out there dormant, just waiting to be discovered.
    I am confident that one or two good ideas will answer the business problem of monetizing these networks.

    Google, Amazon and Ebay networks have found one or more good money producing ideas, and now maybe Facebook is finding one as well.

    I wrote a short bit on this "Elephant in the Room" that you might find interesting: http://albinophantblog.com/social-money-the-elephant-in-the-room/692/

  4. Steve Swanson from Engauge Communications, October 5, 2009 at 11:24 a.m.

    Very helpful. I love the last two! And I hope you don't mind if I re-quote the concept of "ideas that take flight now tend to be creative executions of the practical"

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