1. creative
concepts
Today's marketing talks a lot about strategies and executions, while
the web wants IA, AD,
and UX. But all these
things exist solely to service something deeper: an idea.
An idea - a creative concept - is two thoughts linked in a way
they weren't before. Saying something new as a result. Every great campaign,
website, or application was built on an idea, and communicating an idea is
the principal task of any execution or strategy. In fact, it's the only reason
to do anything at all.
Sport is empowerment? - Big Idea. Nike
makes billions from it. Magic you can trust? Big Idea, and IBM
handles most of the world's enterprise computing with it. Technology is human-shaped?
Big Idea, and with it Sony
became the greatest consumer electronics group of all.
If your idea's bad or wrong, you can forget about your campaign doing
more than bouncing off your audience's limited attention span; it'll be unwanted
and unloved. But if your idea's great, it'll get inside their heads in a way
no edgy art direction or killer copy can alone.
Because an idea asks people to participate. No joke is funny without
something left out, a gap for the audience to fill in themselves. (Otherwise
known as 'getting it'.) The best comedians leave the most to their audience.
Because once people get it, they're connected to you on a platform of shared
understanding. And that's what every marketer needs.
That's why Redpump's reason-for-being is ideas,
plain and simple. (Chris learned the secret of
getting ideas many years ago
in the jungles of Southeast Asia.) Next: information
architecture.