Embrace the pain

Read an interesting article the other day that spoke of the 1/100 rule where its usually your 1st idea or your 100th that kicks ass but you won't know the 1st one rocks till you explore all hundred. Easier said than done... I've always been a believer in the "creative process" where you put your head down and keep going at it till it hurts and i mean really hurts, till you start picturing your copywriter partner's head exploding...

I don't do it as often as I should, mostly because of the "ridiculous timeline" driven world we live in. One of the most useful things an ex-copy partner showed me was a grid used by David Droga - probably the most talented creative director around. While climbing up the creative ladder he'd create a grid that could house close to 100 thoughts on a A3 sheet (that's tabloid for you folks in North America) and wouldn't let up till he filled the entire grid with a 100 unique thoughts.

And yes the urge to cheat with filling the grid up with "meh" thoughts do play on your mind but I've found this a really good way to keep it going even after you hit your wall and are struggling to work up that awesome concept.

So i say lets embrace the pain and you never know you might end up with a beauty like this

Trusting the impossible

Buying an idea in its infancy is amazingly hard.

I get that. To see a couple of sketches and a few mood boards with a bunch of words about what it could be is a tough buy. And that's when the people doing the buying need to have faith, just a little smidgen of trust that this could become something bigger than all of us thought or expected. We all know advertising is not an exact science but we all draw from thoughts and ideas that resonate with a human truth

I love when clients point to awesome campaigns like "Impossible is nothing" and say "we'd like something like this", but think about where that started out, just this little speck of a thought with a line that contained all the potential in the world.

And for people who aren't the most visual thinkers, it helps to trust the people whom you've turned to for a marketing solution instead of going out duck hunting because if they keep that up sooner or later people are going to get tired to being shot down.

So, lets show a little trust in what we can't see...yet. And take that leap together...