Page 190 - THE DO-IT-YOURSELF LOBOTOMY Open Your Mind to Greater Creative Thinking

21 Tips for Selling Creative Ideas 181

they’re running out the door. Then all kinds of bad stuff can hap-
pen... the suits aren’t prepared to sell... they don’t know what’s on
your mind... they don’t know what your recommendation is... they
have seconds to make up their mind instead of being part of the
process... and quite often they will decide what they’re going to sell
regardless of what you want them to present. Not good.
When you involve people early, you take a leap, but again, having
crystal clear roles defines who creates and who reacts. Even if their reac-
tion doesn’t support your point of view, it’s good to know this early. As
an advertising creative person, I used the early in-house presentation as
a gauge of what the client was going to think. I don’t want to be
ambushed by the client’s objections at the moment of truth; I want to
know in advance what the objections may or may not be. That’s why I
like having this interim, internal meeting.

“They Killed the Idea.” (Oh, Really?)
This is an aspect of selling that a lot of people miss. We are most fre-
quently selling ideas. How we dress them up is not the idea, it’s the exe-
cution. If the way you dress up the idea determines whether the idea
lives or dies, then it’s not an idea you’re selling; it’s an execution of an
idea, or a very shallow idea, at best. So, for instance, when I hear
advertising creative people say, “They killed the headline, so they
killed the ad,” I answer, “No, they killed the headline. The idea of the
ad may very well still be alive. Write another headline.”
Often, there are lots of headlines that can articulate a concept.
Likewise, in any field there are lots of ways to execute an idea. If there
are not lots of headlines that can articulate your concept, then it’s likely
a very shallow concept. That’s what’s wrong with pun headlines; that’s
what’s wrong with pun visuals. If they kill the pun, they’ve killed the
idea, because it’s often a very shallow idea.
I believe that for the most part people remember ideas, not execu-
tion. They remember the primary concept behind things, not so much
the manifestation of the idea itself. When people tell you about a
movie, they very rarely recount the dialogue or the art direction or the
stage direction. They relate the idea of the movie. People rarely come
away with details, even though details play an important role in artic-
ulating the story, mood, or message. It’s the same way with ads and
many other products and services. They’ll tell you the concept of the
ad; there are lots of different words that can play off the concept.
(There are exceptions. Budweiser’s “Wassup?” is a good example
because the execution and the idea were very tightly integrated. In
most ads that is not the case.)