In marketing, ideas are everything.

Not having original ones can be costly.

And in a world of social media, where you feel under pressure to keep serving up marketing; not being original could damage your brand.

Or as advertising godfather David Abbott put it:

“Shit that arrives at the speed of light, is still shit.”

So how do you make sure you aren’t serving shit?

The solution is incredibly simple:

→ A clear strategy to stand for something different.

→ Great ideas superbly executed to be memorable.

But these things aren’t easy to come by, right?

Especially if you are reliant on a few people coming up with all the ideas, or you are doing everything yourself (hello founders).

The reason some of the best agencies work is because they have divergent teams, working in divergent ways, on divergent briefs.

In short:
→ Every member of the team is different
→ Every brief is different
→ Every day is different

This instills a culture of creativity, curiosity and randomness.

All the things you need to fuel brilliant ideas.

So if you’ve got an internal creative or marketing team who has been with you longer than six months who are working on yet another product launch… 

… I guarantee they are caught on repeat.

Which means your ideas aren’t as strong. 
And you are wasting precious time and money.

So what do you do?

1. Stimulate a culture of curiosity

Prompt teams to have time outside your niche.

Running brand? 
Get them to study the beauty sector.

Based in the Lake District?
Brief them in Manchester city centre.

Lunch times are for running, swimming, hiking (whatever your niche)? Go play something else.

Speaking of stimulating curiosity, have you seen this new space in London?

The picture is of Global Street Art’s gallery in the heart of London. Home to 100,000 objects tracing 150 years of creative history it has all you need to stimulate fresh thinking.

2. Invite constant provocation

You need a forum for constant challenge and review; but make it clear that everyone has the right to challenge thinking to improve the idea.

Better still invite new people to do it; ask consumers to review the idea; or bring in fresh eyes to challenge the thinking.

Make it about the work, not a personal attack on your team’s ability! This is a cultural thing.

3. Let agencies fuel fresh thinking

The success of solo brand building is few and far between. Yeti’s internal creative model is a rare success (incidentally they mainly hired agency people).

So be realistic about what your internal teams can and cannot crack. Let an agency partner take on some of the bigger challenges, then use your internal teams to execute.

Why am I confident these things will help?

I’ve been around creative problem solving for brands for twenty years, working on some of the UK’s most revered creative agencies on some of the world’s biggest brands.

Found this useful? 

There is more where this came from, speak to us about your own challenges, and we’ll show you how we can get your internal teams thinking differently.

Neil Bennett

Excursion Studio

Founder