99.999999999% of your ideas will never be made.
That’s an advertising creative’s life.
Most of those ideas don’t deserve to, they’re first thoughts, also-rans or terrible. The hardest to get over are the ones you know are great.
I don’t think any of my best work’s ever been made. In fact, I’d probably swop out every idea in my book for something that’s never seen the light of day…
Whether that’s the one that let you play football with Messi from anywhere on the planet.
Nuns doing product reviews.
Bringing a dose of reality to gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show.
Steve Guttenberg explaining evolution, and where he’s been since the 80s.
Or all the different ideas for TV gameshows.
(I’m not going to give anymore away).
This could all be sadder than the death of Bambi’s mam unless you find a way to use these ideas to help others get made in the future.
So, save them all in a file. The memory of them, while painful, reminds you what you can do.
In the future, you can flick through this file when the ideas are coming slowly. Or you’re just completely stuck. Let them excite and inspire you.
And there’s always the chance you’ll spot that one of those great old ideas could fit your new brief. If you change the logo anyway.
You can also create a department or agency version of this file.
We use to staple this type of idea up on the wall. Always in view to drive us on and encourage the next great idea.
This agency file also came in handy when as a Creative Director I was asked how we could make the agency’s creative output better. It showed we had the ideas, the actual problem we needed to solve was getting better at getting them made.
