Where Do Ideas Come From?

I think a lot of people in the advertising business, especially so-called creative people, aren't taken seriously in our business and by clients, because they think a lot about creativity but not enough about business.

To be clear, creativity in advertising must be in service of a business objective. We are charged with selling stuff, or improving a brand's reputation, or imparting some brand-relevant information. Commercials, despite the power and weight of what's award-winning these days, are not "art films." Or if they are, then at least they must be "art films in service of a business objective."

Many people in our business, in a way that I truly fail to understand, don't read The Wall Street Journal. The Journal, for all its cheery neo-fascism, gives readers the information to know more than their clients know about whatever field their clients are in. Oh, and more than planners, account people, and fellow creatives too. If that's not an "unfair advantage," when you're working on a information-based brand, I don't know what is. 

(BTW, I don't believe in making brands part of culture. During the upcoming Super Bowel, we will see about 75 spots that attempt to do so. They don't seem to realize that celebrity juxtaposition and cultural appropriation cannot really be owned by one brand. By doing advertising that's extraneous to the composition or components of your brands, you're really, in essence, making work for the category rather than your client.)

In any event, I started reading The Wall Street Journal around 45 years ago. They ran ads at the time for the Journal that featured famous advertising creatives. You can see about 50 or so here on Dave Dye's treasure of a blog, "Stuff From the Loft."
Here are just a few of the people profiled in these ads. Below that a picture of people profiled I was lucky enough to work for, with or near. (I know they're all white men I've featured. That's the way it was. And we didn't know any better. We do now.)

All these ads featured a bit of copy on why the ad notable featured read the Journal. I said to myself nearly half-a-century ago, if they read the Journal, if they admire the product, I should do the same. Here are a few of those reasons why:

I'm gushing about the Journal, however, because of this article and book review on how we get ideas. The gist of it can be summed up in these sentences, especially the single sentence I've underscored: "George Newman, a cognitive scientist and professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management...draws on scientific studies, historical examples and behavioral research to argue that what we call inspiration is better understood as a set of habits and mental practices available to anyone willing to cultivate them. Creativity, in his telling, is more method than miracle."

Newman analyzes how ideas happen--the circumstances and the conditions that are "idea-phrenogenic." That is, the circumstances and the conditions conducive to having ideas and working to make them better.

In the spirit of ideas coming more from method than miracle, Newman is a fan not of isolation--but of sharing thoughts with friends and colleagues. He's a fan of submitting ideas to the scrutiny of others because their feedback often sharpens what solitary effort cannot." 

Newman also notes that new ideas are rarely "entirely new." In fact, most often innovations and "breakthroughs" grow out of previous ideas. He cites a study by systems researcher Brian Uzzi. He analyzed 18 million scientific papers and found breakthroughs happen in only 5% to 10% of them. Most "new" ideas are "a strategic mix of old with a touch of new."

He likens creativity to an archaeological dig. It's the final, most tedious stretch--the sifting and refining--that makes something of what's been dug up. The point of tedium (re-working) when most people give up is when most ideas come to life.

Maybe most interesting to me is how Newman talks about how we can use AI. He sees value at the "digging" stage. Sometimes sheer "volume matters more than initial quality." But Newman believes (and this is where the cost-cutters using AI--including the holding companies--will fail) humans are essential to the process. "They bring the judgment to recognize a fertile idea, the unique experiences to make it their own and the ability to execute it in ways machines cannot replicate."

The point in all this is simple.

Ideas come from many places.

Friends. Sparks from previous ideas. Discussions. Feedback. And mostly working, re-working, re-re-working and so on.

No matter how you analyze the genesis of the alchemy of new thoughts--there is a miraculousness to the miracle of saying something in a way no one else has ever said it before.

I once wrote a line for an IBM software ad that made Chris Wall love me, or at least tolerate me, unconditionally. I wrote "This makes the Crab Nebula look like small potatoes."

No one knows where the ability to find those miracles comes from. Somehow I think I get a lot of them from reading. Especially things no one else reads. Like The Wall Street Journal.