Do ideas really take too long?
There's an article in today's AdAge arguing, as many people do today, that agencies take too long to produce ideas.
It's an interesting read. And makes some valid points.
But in my experience it's not the creation of ideas that eats up time it's the sheer number of people circling around the process.
Whether that's internal meetings and review sessions. Client presentations. Debriefings. Legals. Etc etc.
Regardless of all that the key to success when having an idea, and also understanding how ideas happen, was put into words by the legendary James Webb Young a long long time ago.
His book "A Technique for Producing Ideas" is as relevant today as it was when it was first published.
I put it on the reading list of the Advertising Degree at RMIT.
For those who are not familiar with it. And for those who think the clever people who have ideas take too long doing it. Here is James Webb Young's book reduced to a short list. I found it in the comments to the AdAge article.
1. Gather your raw materials
2. Work over these materials in your mind
3. Stop thinking about it and let the unconscious mind take over.
4. Give birth to the idea
5. Shape and develop the idea
It's not the creating that takes time—it's the incubating.
Hat tip to Steven Stark for the comment.
posted by Stan Lee at 9:21 am
4 Comments:
Do digital suits bill the clients for all the time they spend sending "just touching base to see how you're going" emails to creatives?
I thought that shit only happened to me Glenn!
Stan, I bought 100 copies of "A technique for producing ideas" to give to my client. Such a great little book. Go JWY.
I'm not usually given to commenting in forums such as this as my life as an advertising creative has been such a bittersweet affair.
That an opportunity to comment on the reverence of the idea and the things in their way was too much to bear so here goes.
We all talk about ideas and our respect for them, every agency claims a reverence, every creative a desire to produce their best. In reading some of the responses in the source article you mentioned there was a familiar ring to all, and there is no doubt the technique of gathering your reference, getting a grip on the problem, letting the subconscious do its mysterious work, allowing the idea to take shape and then going through the hone and craft that lets it see a respectful light of day is the way it should be.
Sure there is the brain snap flash of inspiration on occasion but as one response noted, you have to work past it to know that was the one...
But then this comes along.
I couldn't find anyone that mentioned courage. I may have missed them, don't think I did.
Sooner or later someone has to say we'll go with that one, and the bigger the idea, the more daring, out there or different it is, the more courage it takes.
We've all been there though when we think we have a cracker, and gone through the let down of it's too weird, or obtuse, or let's put it into research... or whatever.
The agency system has creatives placed in this chain of communication to the client that, depending on the culture you work in, might mean you are trying to get an idea past any number of layers. CD's, account service, clients, agency execs, always at the risk of a random comment that can scuttle something special.
How often have we looked at the winners of an award show and thought, how the hell did that get made?
By what strange magic did that come to be?
In the end someone had the courage to say... do it.
That person in the end is the client, and the genius comes in that recipe of being able to produce the idea in the first place, being able to sell it without dilution, and having a client who can trust their agency enough to give a nod.
That once in our careers we should get a chance to work in a place where all the elements align is worth casting a Golden Calf, or three.
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