Viewpoint: It’s not trendy to say so, but the idea’s the thing

February 5, 1996 by Strategy Staff

I want to talk about something that has been almost forgotten as we stumble through Web sites and psychographics and databases and infomercials and narrowcasting and surfing the interconnected interstellar interface.

I want to talk about the power of the idea.

The idea is not a trendy thing, probably for two simple reasons.

One, ideas have been around for several dozen centuries, at least since the wheel and fire.

Two, ideas are not something exclusive, like musical talent or a knack for higher mathematics.

Everybody has ideas, and so they tend to become ordinary, unprized, sometimes, quite literally, worth a dime a dozen.

But the idea is all we’ve really got that separates us from apes and asters and algae. Ideas help us to open cans and to understand the universe. Ideas give us beauty, comfort, convenience, entertainment and inspiration.

I’m sure that philosophers have a million different definitions of what an idea is. I’ve always preferred to remember what an idea isn’t. A very wise art director taught me.

He was working on a major project with a not-very-ambitious, not-very-talented copywriter, and he was getting increasingly frustrated. Suddenly, he came charging into my office, steam issuing from his ears, and shouted:

‘Do you know what that idiot said now?’

‘No, Mike, what?’

‘He said, `Hey, I got an idea. Bruce Springsteen.’

‘So?’

‘Bruce Springsteen is not an idea. Bruce Springsteen is a rocker. A New Jersey boy. A superstar. A millionaire. Bruce Springsteen is a whole bunch of things, some of which may be meaningful to our assignment, but Bruce Springsteen is not an idea.’

And he stormed out again.

I got his point.

Selecting a celebrity, or a musical style, or a trendy typeface, or the right shape of starburst to house ‘new/improved,’ these are not ideas.

Ideas break new ground (and are, therefore, scary.) Ideas are the result of taking the familiar and reshaping it into something that often looks obvious, but is really very new.

Thousands of marketers had looked at the airline business, and had seen the importance of repeat travellers and the problem of loyalty. Only one – American – thought up the frequent flyer idea. (Naturally, every other company has since lifted it.)

Thousands of space salespeople had looked at high traffic billboard sites, wishing there were more of them. Only one thought, ‘Hey, if we printed our posters on a series of vertical triangular prisms, and motorized them, we could sell three billboards in that one space.’

As grownups, we don’t spend enough time looking for ideas. We follow formulas, worship trends, and seek out the people who think as we do, instead of those who would prod us into new territory.

Kids are different. Children (whom we accuse of having short attention spans) will stare into space or at a dandelion thistle for many minutes, engaged in pure contemplation.

They then come up with great new ideas.

Unfortunately, because of their limited experience, children’s ideas have usually been thought of before (hell, so have most of ours), but that doesn’t make the process any less valuable.

We should imitate it, often.

For the next column or two, I’m going to stay on the subject of ideas. They’re important. They’re essential. They’re undervalued.

If you’ve got ideas on ideas, I’d like to hear from you. The Strategy fax number is back there on page four.

John Burghardt, formerly president of a national advertising agency, now heads his own communications firm in Toronto.