The Big Idea Is A Dumb Idea
By Derek Lo work at Anomaly, but the few expressed below are not those of his agency, but his alone.
I’m kind of sick of big ideas. What does that mean anyways? What regular person actually cares about a generic template that can be applied to multiple marketing channels on a global scale? You can punch me in the face if you’ve ever heard a teenager see an ad campaign and say “damn… that is sooo huge”. People don’t care about the size of an idea. They just want to be entertained, humored, or inspired. If your work happens to make a big impact, then it happens.
Even if you have a gigantic thought, its worthless if it never gets executed. I’m tired of brainstorms sessions where creative ideas get written down on a giant post-it note and then die in a powerpoint. We live in an era where any joe schmoe can make a killer video, throw it on youtube, and get a million hits. We’re getting out played by the 18 yr old with an HD cam and a little bit of time on his hands. They’re making us look like chumps.
The idea of a “big idea” was the dumbest idea in the history of ideas. It’s just more industry jargon and a creative enhancement of our own egos. If we are ever going to get better at communicating with real people, we have to stop blowing smoke up our own asses and step outside the advertising bubble.
We’ll always have great ideas. So let’s get more efficient, resourceful, productive, and intelligent.
Real talk.