Why ideas are like coconuts

“I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts
There they are all standing in a row
Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head “

Danny Kaye

For many years The Ad industry has been in thrall of “the big idea”, and being so it regularly points to examples of those that have lead to have produced significant brand success; historically think BA’s world’s favourite airline, and more recently Coke’s Open Happiness.

As the marketing and communications industry struggles to comes to terms with the impact of technological, economic tsunamis and their cultural consequences, the role and importance of the ‘big idea’ is under examination.

Lets start with a quote from David Ogilvy

"It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers...Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night."

Applied specifically to advertising this suggests that the key objective is to gain attention in an environment where the communication is competing against a myriad of other messages.  Being of its time it's based on an interruptive model of advertising, where the so-called ‘audience’ (?) is doing something else and the brand tries to momentarily grab their attention, and generate awareness or better still interest.

There are a couple of issues here:

1.    The world has changed and interruption is acknowledged less and less asan effective means of gaining attention and driving awareness, let alone the new prime objective of ‘engagement’.

2.     Some clients and some agencies don't always recognise what really constitutes a “big idea”.

As far back as 1983 Ogilvy himself wrote,

“I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea.” 

More than a quarter of a century on it’s likely that that ratio is even worse. Not great odds if you are investing everything on a 'big idea'.

Don’t get me wrong there are still examples of great thinking and execution that deliver what we all recognise as a big idea.  But should the pursuit of such represent the only framework within which we work to deliver solutions for our clients.

A big idea can be seen as a compelling thought that gives a brand a strong sense of self in the eyes of its audience.  But is it always just a ‘creative’ idea?  I think not.

Brands such as Howies, demonstrate that a big idea can be just as much a philosophy of doing business that informs creativity, as a creative expression of such.  And it’s with example such as this that we begin to see that potent ideas come in all shapes and sizes.

“Like any company we require a profit to stay in business. But it is not the reason we are in business. The thing that has not changed from day one is the desire to make people think about the world we live in. This is, and always will be, why we are in business" 

Dave Hieatt

The big idea here is the purpose of the business, which in turn drove the expression of the business through lots of small ideas, each of which helped define this purpose; in product, poetry, online and in a retail environment.

Gareth Kay has some interesting observations about the role and power of small ideas, and puts a strong case for focusing on small ideas to provide brands with momentum and drive them forward. (See his series of posts here)

“Creating brands built around a coherent stream of small ideas makes them stickier and more powerful - being the brand of new news and seen as having momentum and energy is the best leading indicator of future preference and usage.  It also means you are more likely to thrive in a world where 95% of things die”.

He also points out that the costs of trying things is getting lower and lower, which means it’s increasingly better to do stuff and learn from it rather than learning and doing.   

There’s an increasingly strong case for getting things out into the real world rather than spending too long trying to make things perfect. 

This is the iterative approach of Silicon Valley, rather than the crafting process of the traditional ad agency, and one whic agencies are already adapting to with their internal 'labs'.

Turning briefly to the aforementioned Open Happiness platform developed by Wieden & Kennedy for Coke, we could see this as a ‘big idea’.  I think though it is more useful to see it as what John Williams of Grey originally termed as a ‘Long Idea’.

This term sees the idea in the context of time, as an evolving entity, with a narrative.  The introduction of an element of story to the idea, provides more space for the development of different (but still coherent) threads, and provides more space for participation. The launch is just the beginning and the objective is to develop ongoing ideas that enable the brand to enter the lives and culture of its ‘audiences’ (that word again!). 

Maybe a good way of thinking about this is the analogy of a wave energy converter, such as the Pelamis, below.

Each section of the ‘worm’ represents a small idea, and the longer the worm the more energy it produces.

Coke understand this well, as is demonstrated by its presentation at the Cannes Lions earlier this summer.  Their “Liquid and Linked” approach (whose name works nicely with the wave energy convertor analogy) places a new emphasis on dynamic storytelling to connect with people across multiple connection points. They recognise that we live in a multi-dimensional world, which demands deeper interaction.  As they put it:

“This has brought a change in thinking, a change in staffing and an understanding that now, creating valuable and shareable content is the way to build brand love and value for the long term”.

Cannes Lions 2011 - Liquid and Linked Mystique Coca-cola seminar from Dmitry Voskresensky on Vimeo.

This recognition of content’s key role points to way of working where small ideas that are coherent with the ‘Long Idea’, become both the fuel (or the worm sections) providing the brand energy, as well as multiple opportunities for on-going engagement.

Whatever the size and shape of the idea its important that we realise its the start or a part of constant, evolving conversation or story, not a burst of activity then silence for six months.