What a big idea is. What a big idea does.

I read this online and it annoyed the crap out of me.

I’ve heard this notion promulgated a few times before and it’s always bandied about by the exact same person: a digital advertising exec who has never had a big idea in his/her life. But has nonetheless decided that big ideas are a bad thing (never met a marketing person who shares this opinion btw) and that instead “something digital” is clearly the way forward at all times. Oh and TV is old. And taglines too.

Aside from the fact that this was basically a poorly written press release for R/GA, it displays a singular and embarrassing ignorance of what a big idea is and what it does.

I think the author of this is the new biz guy there, so you have to expect a certain amount of hyperbole, but this guy clearly hasn’t got a clue what he’s talking about. But that doesn’t stop him does it? Oh no.

I learned big thinking from a guy who thought very big indeed. And I have been fortunate enough to be involved with and around big advertising ideas.

Big ideas make everybody happy. That’s what they do.

Consumers are happy, clients are happy, agency folks are happy.

Big ideas have energy. They go everywhere. Everybody wants a piece of them.

Big ideas have real value. They are an actual asset.

Big ideas are the result of big thinking. Ambitious thinking. Occasionally big ideas are the product of luck, but usually not.

Big thinking is a pain in the arse. This is why you see so little of it.

It’s not so much that very few people can have big ideas, it’s just that the amount of effort and energy and focus it takes to conceive and execute them (and maintain them) is frankly wearying.

There’s a reason big thinkers tend to be very energetic people.

“Digital is at the heart of everything we do” *

*If you’re still saying this kind of nonsense in 2011, digital is very probably NOT at the heart of everything you do. And, just so you know, you are precisely six years behind the times. Good luck!

The digital middle

(inspired by a post at Ben Kay’s stimulating blog) The past decade has seen much thumb twiddling and huffing and puffing over the role of “digital” in advertising.

At various points it was supposed to lead to the end of advertising and then it was the best thing to ever happen to advertising.

Traditional agencies got beaten about the head for not “getting” digital. And now digital agencies are getting beaten about the head for not “getting” advertising and marketing and being code monkeys who can’t sell things.

We at The Escape Pod got heartily sick of all this blather years ago. So we decided to live in the present and see how that went.

Like everyone else we too were momentarily distracted by the latest digital baubles. Remember when “widgets” were going to take the world by storm? Embarrassingly, we do.

Now that digital is something that is part of our everyday lives and something that permeates our real lives its role for marketers is becoming clearer.

One of my pet peeves all along has been the self appointed digital guru/ninja/savant/ fancy glasses sporting fop in three hundred dollar jeans. These people are usually ‘self-appointed’ because nobody in their right mind would appoint them to anything. Rant over!

So i’m not going to conclude this blog post with a top ten tips to digital anything.

But i will say this. Above all else experience is what matters in the digital arena. just like anything else.

I remember feeling similarly annoyed at the “experts” who would happily lecture on the elements necessary to create a winning super bowl commercial. Despite never actually having written one themselves.

Nothing is ever as daunting as it seems once you start doing it.

For a few years there was a whole cottage industry devoted to creating anxiety about “digital” in marketing and advertising folks who didn’t know any better.

Hopefully that industry’s day is done. We all get it now. It’s like using the phone. Or breathing.