Think Different

Army Strong

The Driving Machine

These are not just taglines from well-known campaigns. These are examples of game-changing concepts.  Throughout history, concepts have been the way to sell in an idea. Whether we were trying to sell the idea of a country where everyone has freedom of choice or the idea that you could order a hamburger without pickles or lettuce, it has always been about the CONCEPT.

Cut to: Interior of a studio at any ad agency. Two twenty-somethings sitting in the editing bay feverishly cutting together a “spec spot.”  Creative Director with short-cropped hair, salt and pepper scruff, and black horned-rimmed glasses hanging over their shoulder.  “We need to get this perfect for the RFP submission.  Can you move in tighter on the product shot?”

WTF!

So here's what. Why are we are skipping right over concept and going straight to execution?  Since when did that win an account? 

This might be hard for some of you to conceive but clients are not buying our ability to write copy. They are not buying our ability to capture the sun setting on a Napa Valley vineyard. They are buying our ability to think.

Does creative win pitches? Of course it does.  But it is the unseen, yet to be produced creative, that actually wins the pitch. The 3 concepts you show must be strong enough to evoke 300 execution images in the mind of the Client.  That’s when you win.

Think Different.

Concept: Don’t be like everyone else buying a home computer

Army Strong.

Concept: It takes a higher level of strength to be a soldier.

The Driving Machine.

Concept: The journey should be just as thrilling as the destination.

So, here’s what! Take a cue from the iconic concepts in our industry.

Don’t be like everyone else. Go to a higher level to make sure your next new business presentation focuses on the ever-expanding journey, and not just the destination. 

And…fade to black.