The Post-Big Idea World

I was recently handed a copy of a fantastic article from Creativity Magazine wherein Michael Lebowitz from the digital creative agency Big Spaceship made an impassioned plea for the end to the old-school ‘big idea’ being central to marketing communication strategy.

There was a time when the “big idea” was all that mattered. You didn’t need to know how it was produced because the medium was always predictable and the line between idea and execution was distinct.  Ideas will always be central to great work. But we can no longer separate them from the platforms and channels they play out in. In our world, you can’t plan digital communications insightfully, or execute effectively, without understanding how to build it.

One of the reasons I loved this article was that Lebowitz, in not so many words, makes the point that the “big idea” is usually just code for the “TV idea.”  The task of creating ‘extensions’ of 30-second television commercials (as digital agencies are often asked to do) is usually a futile one.  A great TV commercial script should be a stand-alone story in half-a-minute, with no extension needed.  A crappy television script is, well, crappy, and you know what they say about polishing a turd…

A big part of what separates new media from old media is that in new media the producer defines (in large part) the user experience within the same frame as the content. The most creative television concept still has the same old user experience — turn to the correct channel at the top of the hour and watch.  That’s it!  Digital media mixes the interaction with the content, and social media adds the even more unpredictable and wonderful component of interaction with OTHER PEOPLE.

REAL big ideas should be bigger than the medium.  In fact, the ideal situation (in my mind anyway) is that a great marketing communication idea should be decided on with no thought of what media will be used, only as a story that says one or two essential things about the brand.  Once that story is sketched out, different media can be selected that best suit the strategy.  Maybe television, maybe radio, maybe print or a website or a video series on YouTube or a bunch of downloadable ringtones.  Whatever works best, not whatever happens to be on a pre-defined media plan that was baked six months before the idea was even thought of.

A story essential and deep enough that it can (and should) be told with many media.  THAT should be the test of a truly BIG idea.

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