The power of a big idea

Today is the 15th anniversary of the release of the first Harry Potter book: Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone.

Legendarily, it was written when JK Rowling was living on welfare. She had the idea while traveling on a train.

She is now richer than the Queen of England.

My three kids are the Harry Potter generation. This one hit like a comet, culturally.

It’s bigger than Star Wars. That’s how big it is.

Big ideas have big impact. Because everybody loves them when they see them.

Usually the really big ideas share a common characteristic: they stake out the biggest possible territory. They dream big.

Harry Potter is as basic as it gets: a good vs evil showdown.

I was always very impressed by Anheuser-Busch’s internal slogan: make friends.

How simple. And how appropriate for a brewer in a country where prohibition nearly killed the company.

When evaluating ideas it’s the only criterion that really matter. Does this idea stake out the biggest possible territory for the brand?

What would your competitors hate you for? What would be the worst possible thing you could do, as far as they’re concerned. Do that!

I’m always amazed at how few brands really go for it confidently. It’s not like any brand can’t be dislodged by a more appealing marketing or advertising idea.

Have you drunk Dos Equis lately? Is it because of the most interesting man campaign?

Corona must hate that campaign.

;-)

Trop de Grand Prixes en Cannes?

Awards shows in general have been thrown for a loop by the internet.  Let’s face it, their principle raison d’etre was aggregation.

They used to offer the advertising community the chance to see the see the best the world had produced in the previous year. 

Usually in a book.  Or a VHS.  Or a DVD.

That’s their DNA.   Judging the best and producing some form of annual collection so we could all get an overview of that year’s creative output.

So they served a valuable need.

Then along came the internet.

And the award shows were caught like deer in the headlights.

Only slowly realizing that the need to aggregate creativity was blown away by the fact that if an idea is any good I’m to to hear about it online the next day.

Ideas are no longer as easy to judge either.  It’s no longer :30 spot vs :30 spot.

And online entries frequently don’t have the crowd pleasing emotion that film has.  Part of the fun of the final night is hearing the instant audience reaction in the Palais.

And I don’t need a group of ad execs to tell me if an idea is any good anymore. 

The most viral ideas are the big winners.  The public are now the judges.

But awards shows like Cannes are money-making entities.

So what do they do?   The obviously smart thing. 

Turn the awards show into a “festival of creativity” and create many more categories so many more people can enter at a grand a pop.

Which is fine.  Up to a point.

At a certain point the sheer number of categories and awards reaches diminishing returns.

The awards lose their cachet.

And cachet is what used to make Cannes special.  it was their product.

It was the world championship of advertising. The one we all agreed on because it was easy to agree on it.

But if they’re not careful, they’re in danger of becoming yet another trade show in a rather tacky seaside town.

(I was going to show you the winning idea at Cannes this year but i’m not really sure what the winner is.  QED)

 

 

If you want to be smart, start out stupid.

I’m stealing this from something i saw on Ben Kay’s lovely blog.

It’s something we in advertising (should) know all too well.

That your “intelligence” is worth fuck all when you’re selling floor cleaner to the masses.

Quite often, you have to break down the most mundane products and processes into their constituent parts to begin to have any ideas.

What is the role of the product in people’s lives?

Do they care?

Does it matter?

If so, how? And in what way?

What is the purchase decision? Is it a last minute thing or a considered thing?

it goes on and on.

And in this process, you set aside your “intelligence” and your biases in the service of selling what you’re selling.

You surrender. You become an unquestioning sponge.

And, only much later, do you re-engage your critical thinking cap.

And the idea-thinking-stage begins.

But only then.

It’s a bitch really. And it never gets old!

The thing that just won’t die!!!

I just read today that Andy Samberg, the funny one on Saturday Night Live who just quit, has a new movie out called That’s My Boy in which he co-stars with Adam Sandler.

In the movie, Adam Sandler plays his ne’er-do-well father.  And one of the running gags in the movie is that his dad still thinks saying “Whassuuup!” is hysterical all these years later.

In the interview, Samberg said:

“I’ve had a love-hate relationship with ‘Whassup?’ since those commercials came out,” noted Samberg, who just announced his departure from the sketch show, Saturday Night Live.

“In fact, my first ‘Weekend Update’ feature I ever did on SNL was with Bill Hader, and that was my joke, that all I said was, ‘Whassup?’”

I remember when he said that on his first appearance on SNL seven years ago and i groaned slightly.  It felt utterly played even then, much less now.

But here is the weird part about it, the Budweiser Whassup! commercials were so popular, and were referenced in the pop culture so many times over the years that I stopped feeling anything, positive or negative, at a certain point.  And they were my idea. it is strange. I couldn’t imagine such a thing. It still feels odd that i feel such a distance from something that was once so close to my heart.

But I completely understand what Mr. Samberg means.

I recall sitting in the edit suite when we were cutting the very first Whassup! ads, and by day 5 I was ready to hang myself from listening to his catchphrase over and over and over and over and over and over again.

I was the very first Whassup! burnout casualty.

And I also vividly recall being in New York three months later on a Saturday night with my co-workers shooting new Whassup! commercials to feed the frenzy that had blown up around them.

All our cell phones rang simultaneously.  Our friends and families were calling up with the exciting news that Saturday Night Live started with a parody of our commercials.

And i remember being surprised at how our minds WEREN’T blown by this otherwise exciting news.

It’s amazing how fast we adapt.

RIP Trololol guy

Eduard Khil, the Russian baritone who shot to random and sudden internet fame when a clip of him singing on a Russian TV show from the 1970s blew up on YouTube has died.

Trololol was a great example of how the internet is a ceaselessly writhing beast that mines the past and the present for our stimulation and entertainment.

Mr. Khil was 77 at the time of his death and I’m sure it must have been gratifying, and a not a little strange, to find himself at the center of an online vortex.

We at the Escape Pod actually contacted him once.

We wanted him to come perform at our annual party.

But his son said that Eduard didn’t feel up to travelling from Russia.

And we came thisclose to selling an idea featuring him and a lady with a 15 foot python and a fire eater.

Oh well.

So we’re a little sad that Eduard has passed on.

here is ten hours worth of trololol