Evolving the Big Idea
For decades, it’s generally been accepted that all great advertising campaigns sprout from a single “Big Idea” – We Try Harder. The Lonely Maytag Repairman. Ring Around the Collar.
However, in today’s ever-changing media landscape, are we outgrowing the concept of a single Big Idea that sells our product to anyone and everyone lucky enough to hear our message?
Media consumption today is evolving into an ever-more-personalized experience – digital retargeting and behavioral targeting remind us of the shoes we placed in our shopping cart and ALMOST clicked the “Buy” button to obtain…Smart TVs now connect our TV watching to social and digital experiences. Even radio is becoming more and more customized – stations and groups of stations on digital radio (and wired directly into our phones and newer car models) that reflect EXACTLY what we want to listen to at any given time.
As the media landscape becomes more and more cluttered AND targeted, there’s an opportunity to build campaigns that, instead of driving home the same message to a mass customer base, speak to our customers as individuals, reflecting a message that’s relevant both to our product AND to the customer. Beyond the paid landscape, part of this can be achieved through the owned and earned avenues – publishing stories that read more like content than “advertising” messages, and offer added value that reflects the context of what our consumers are engaged in. There are a few campaigns out there that are starting to use this mentality successfully- the US Department of Defense, for instance, has its own TV network (The Pentagon Channel); photojournalists creating content for Flickr; print journalists creating content worthy of publishing in newspaper and magazines; and podcasts for the general public. One such weekly podcast is entitled Armed with Science: Research and Applications for the Modern Military; the goal is to make modern military science more accessible to the general public.
To get through to today’s excessively busy, information-overloaded audience, we need to take advantage of the targeting and information we have available to us – and, as Shel Holtz recently put it, “be inspiring, clarifying, funny, useful or just plain interesting.” Move away from trying to force one slogan, one brand attribute, one message down everyone’s throats, but rather think like our audience, and help them understand that there is something about our product that they truly need.
(Special thanks to AdAge, WebInkNow, and BrianSolis.com for interesting reads and sound bites.)
Media
Imaginuity Lessons from a 9yr Old
A few weeks ago Caine Monroy was just a 9yr old boy with a big imagination. Today he is an internet sensation. All because filmmaker
Nirvan Mullick walked into an auto part store expecting to find well, auto parts, and instead discovered the power of wonder, dreaming big and “imaginuity” (that amazing place where imagination and ingenuity meet.)
The 11 minute short film about Caine’s cardboard arcade has won America’s heart. It was featured on The Today Show and has been shared millions of times across the globe. Caine’s Arcade Facebook page boasts over 45,000 Likes, with fans and supporters having raised over $100,000 for his scholarship fund in just three days.
Unless you have a heart of ice, the film will make you smile. Who doesn’t like to see a 9yr old’s wish come true?! But that’s not why I’m talking about it. This little boy makes me miss childhood. Why as adults have we let go of that child-like optimism that comes with thinking big? We’ve been told ‘no’ so many times, we’ve limited our thinking to what we know will “work.” We lost the optimism that comes with putting out the craziest thing we can think of and truly believing it will work.
Creating big ideas worth talking about means we need to get back to thinking like children. Get inside our imaginations and believe in what could be. Bring back “IMAGINUITY!” Believe the impossible is possible. Start creating like you’ve never been told no.
Click on the link below to watch the video
Caine’s Arcade
Brand Planning