31.8.06

What if it isn't about a BIG IDEA?

Just read an article in Champagne about how the agency of the future will be about coming up with the big idea not the 30 second ad. Somehow having the idea of the BIG IDEA drummed into everybody's head has become a form of mass hypnosis for fad-land. What if the brand can have many small ideas? Even better, lots of small ideas that are so perfectly executed in a medium that they cannot possibly live anywhere else e.g. subservient chicken? What if it isn't about who runs the campaign or becomes the architect for it but a rather a dedicated partner who looks after the short / long term health of a brand (e.g. Nike & W&K)? What if the Campaign changes it's name from campaign to Brand Territory? I think our obsession with creating campaigns that may have a big executional idea in it is all well and good but what we seem less obsessed about is the brand territory long term? There is a difference between brand positioning / territory and the expression of that in a form of communication idea. What if brand consultancies start telling fad land what the positioning should be because fad land has been obsessed about creating ads instead of genuinely caring about the brand positioning (they don't make money from that you see) e.g. BBH & Wolf Olins and the case of Sony Ericsson. What if the agency of the future didn't make its money out of creating 'executions'ads / sites etc. but made its money for nurturing, developing brand territories not big campaign ideas over time? I think that this will never really happen because brand owners (marketing directors etc) have an average tenure of 18 months. They don't necessarily care that much about long term brand territories perhaps they just want to make a couple of famous campaigns perhaps in the 18 months then move on. Then another marketing director comes in and wants to stamp his or her mark and there you go the search for another BIG IDEA begins...

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