Welcome to Idea Club. The first rule of Idea Club is: you do not talk about Idea Club. The second rule of Idea Club is: you do not talk about Idea Club! Apologies to Tyler Durden (of Fight Club fame), but the process of creating ideas can be a bit like a bare-knuckle brawl.
Brainstorming, ideation, concepting — whatever you call it — is fraught with unpredictability. Even with a creative brief and clear objectives, there is no way to guarantee that you will emerge victorious. But we battle on in pursuit of ideas and innovation, blissfully ignoring conceptual skinned knuckles and black eyes.
We do this because ideas are pretty much the most valuable commodity we have. Ideas that bear fruit in a world where the average chief marketing officer tenure is 18 months. Ideas that meet marketing and sales objectives. Ideas that win awards and make you forget how painful it was getting there.
Creating ideas requires a variety of tools, but there is no template. While you may need a compass, a map will surely take you to the wrong place (after all, if there’s a map, it’s because someone has already been there).
Nobody has a bulletproof conceptual process, or an alchemic formula for ideation innovation. Even with experience and preparation, wrangling the elusively awesome idea is never a sure thing. The following guidelines may not point the way to idea nirvana, but if they provoke enough thought, we’ll be headed in the right direction.
Is the process the problem? I read an article once about a computer that had been programmed to create advertising concepts. They input data about the brand, category, and so forth, and the computer generated a series of analogies used to create an ad.
For instance, an airline company known for customer service might be represented as a pillow made of clouds with the headline “Your travel dreams. Now departing.” The computer-generated ads were focus-tested against “professional” ads and fared about the same.
This may sound like scary science fiction if you make your living creating ideas. Alas, this machine never took over the industry and displaced thousands of surly, goateed creative types. This was probably because the computer-generated creative might work once or test well in focus groups, but it cannot adapt and adjust to the variety of problems and factors we deal with on a daily basis.
A formulaic approach will likely generate a predictable idea. If you have an Ideation Process™, consider breaking it. It may be holding you back more than helping you.
Can the idea be king in a democracy? Probably not. Not to get all Machiavellian, but a ruthless devotion to innovative ideas requires some … um, ruthlessness. So much goes into an idea that there will be multiple opportunities for participation throughout your company. But be decisive about who should develop ideas and at which stage.
On a career-defining project for a national packaged-goods icon, eagerness was palpable and teams were champing at the bit to get started with concept creation. As meeting invites were shooting around the company, a senior team-member started asking questions: Did we really have an insight? Was there a clear strategy? Were we directing or reacting?
In our desire to succeed, we were headed for a groupthink, watered-down solution. Brakes were tapped, groups were re-aligned and specific tasks were given to the right people. By stopping to clarify roles, we ended up with an awesome idea and an ecstatic chief marketing officer. Applause filled the room and manna descended from heaven.
Divide and conquer en route to the great idea. Group brainstorms are a good way to build on an existing idea, but not a good way to generate them. Try directed thinking in smaller groups to produce deeper and more ownable ideas.
Are you trying to ideate on-demand? While creating ideas for a retailer’s crucial holiday season, we were struggling to meet unrealistic internal presentation dates. We made deadlines, but not progress. The pressure was epic and the project was going into double-digit rounds. My writing partner and I were on a flight, working on a completely different project, when the answer hit us. By not thinking about innovation, we found it. Ideas are organic. They need time and attention to develop, but they also need space.
Think of your idea like a pet cat. It’s a complex living thing dependent on you to survive. But it still won’t come when you call it. Make sure you are giving your ideas time to evolve. A day spent not thinking about an idea can be like a growth hormone.
Are you working comfortably? Well, stop. Comfortable blows. Comfortable kills ideas. It inspires lethargy and lameness. Innovation is seldom polite and, by definition, demands change. The irony is that while everybody asks for innovative ideas, we often don’t know what to do with them. A range of ideas (from close in to something you would never do) implies that you are “pushing the work.” But in reality, you are just making it easy to choose what’s “safe.”
What if you presented one idea? What if all four ideas make you sweat? If you’ve got the insights and the idea achieves the objective, does it matter if it makes other people uncomfortable? I’ve presented risqué casual dining lines requiring definitions from urbandictionary.com, packaged-goods promotions that prompted immediate calls to legal and a customer relationship management program that completely challenged the available demographic information. Each one almost got killed internally, but they were right for the job.
Once we all got comfortable with being uncomfortable, ideas got sold in and innovation happened. So, inspire yourself and those around you to be uncomfortable, just so you know what it feels like.
Are you thinking outside the cube? We can read endless blogs and articles while digesting MRI research and Mintel data, but even with the best insights and strategies, there is no substitute for thinking on-location. Connect with your target outside of a focus group or creative brief demography. Brainstorm in an environment other than your office. Think of it like method acting. When working on a campaign for Footaction USA, I wasn’t getting the insights and understanding of the target that I needed. So, I went to a local park to play pick up basketball.
Turns out I am really, really bad at basketball, but the experience made the ideas more authentic and less expected. When working on a pitch for the Avon Foundation’s breast cancer fundraising event, three art directors volunteered to board a train and walk the walk (all 39 miles of it). They brought back ideas and blisters that we could not have replicated in a conference room.
And if brainstorming with bartenders for a liquor client seemed like an excuse to drink on the clock, it was. But once we shook off the hangover and finished our sausage and cheese biscuits, we realized that our 80-proof ideas were mixed just right. Invite your team to concept at the mall, hold your briefing at a grocery store, or wherever you can get close to the problem. You should find eyes opened and minds inspired.
The bottom line is that we work in an unrealistic industry, often facing unrealistic demands. We have all received a “when are you coming home?” call or dreaded a looming presentation deadline. But we stay because we love the challenge of the idea, the constantly changing landscape and the ability to solve problems in an unexpected way. A predictable job would be less stressful, but also less exciting.
I offer no answers, but hope the questions posed here push you to re-consider how you are thinking. To evaluate good ideas and make them better. To stop thinking safe and start working out of the ordinary. Because if you don’t bring it, someone else will. 
