Know a good idea when you see one (bullshit filter)

Sam, a designer mate of mine comes up with simple ideas that always seem to work. His MO is based in common sense, and he has a low tolerance for marketing bullshit - and you've gotta respect that.

Take the instance where you've created more than one idea for a job. Sometimes it's difficult to know which one is best. Sam would just apply his 'bullshit filter' - and no question, common sense should usually take you in the right direction. But raw instinct probably won't work in the boardroom, so here's some ideas on putting a rational, 'strategic' process around what you most likely already know.

Seek a bigger idea

Often, if you look closely at seemingly disparate ideas, you can unearth something more fundamental that connects them. Dig a little and you may discover that your different strategic routes could in fact just be different campaign ideas for a much deeper brand idea. So first try looking not at what the best idea is out of the bunch, but at what connects them. 

Curate the idea

Sometimes through, there's no connection to be made, and you do in fact have genuinely different ideas. In this case, here are some qualifiers to help make the right decision:

• Is the problem we're solving something that enough people care about / could care about? 
• Is it provocative? Is it something your audience could not only agree with, but talk about, debate or get involved in?
• Is it something your brand could do credibly? This idea doesn't necessarily have to be something no other brand could do - you just have to own it in a marketing sense - but it does need to be believable for your brand.
• And perhaps most importantly - as Sam would no doubt push - which idea is the simplest? Which can you explain in a sentence. But further, when succinctly articulated in one sentence, which one evokes deeper thought or gives the feeling that there's a shitload of meaning sitting behind it? 

Get the right idea across the line

I'm seeing clients often wanting agencies to present a couple of ideas - and the danger here is that they pick the one you don't want them to. Here, a smart play is giving people a choice if you want them to buy something - offering two similar things where the one you want them to buy just happens to be a little bit better.

Extending on this idea is this bit from Paul Arden's 'It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be":

"If you show him (the client) what you want and not what he wants, he'll say that's not what he asked for. If, however, you show him what he wants first, he is then relaxed and is prepared to look at what you want to sell him. Give him what he wants and he may well give you what you want. There is also the possibility that he may be right."