Now
is there anyone on my list who could do with a battery operated sock
warmer? No? How about that furry pig draft excluder
then?!
I
don’t know about you, but every year I find buying Christmas presents more and
more difficult. It’s not that there are
a lack of lovely things to buy, it’s just that I can’t seem to dredge up
original ideas. Not every present is
difficult of course. Children are fun to
buy for and I can always find something to put a smile on the face of my female
friends and relatives, but joint presents for couples are pretty tricky and as
for you men out there….well…..!
Coming
up with new ideas in a society of consumerism and excess is nigh on
impossible. From time to time we’ll see
a new product that is such a great idea we wonder why no one had thought of it
before. But how many of those have you
seen lately?
In
general, marketing is about ideas. Of
course, it’s about putting those ideas into practice and a lot more besides,
but today’s marketer needs to be inventive to be noticed. There are many ways in which to generate new
ideas. Brain-storming, challenging
assumptions, making new and unexpected connections, or going out there and
getting an external perspective are just a few.
But I’d suggest the starting point isn’t the idea…it’s the purpose. As with everything in marketing – and
business too – we should be asking ourselves ‘why?’. How can we generate innovative ideas if we’re
not sure what we’re trying to achieve?
Back
in the 90’s there was a lot of hoo-hah about company visions and mission
statements. Almost always, the
businesses that were creating these missives were established ones. I’m not knocking them. It’s always refreshing to revitalise and
communicate your purpose. The thing is,
I’ve never met a brand new business owner who has thrust his or her mission
statement into my hand. Why not?! Surely, the new business needs to know what
it wants to be when it grows up!
So
perhaps before we start on the meditation, team expression or in-depth soul
searching that’s essential in the labour ward of idea creation, we make sure we
know where we want to end up. If a new business
starts life with a strong and clear vision it will have a framework for ideas, it
will know what values it needs to communicate and, above all, it will have a
target against which to measure progress.
Happy
head-scratching!
