The fastest way to kill an idea is to add another one.
Strong ideas aren’t rejected outright.
They’re killed by a thousand cuts.
Watered down, overcomplicated, and revised to death.
Our friend Tom Fishburne visualises this perfectly in this cartoon, inspired by The BetterIdeas Project, our latest report.
Our findings prove how this happens.
Too often, one change leads to another, then another, until a sharp, distinctive idea becomes a bland, forgettable compromise.
If you’ve ever watched a great idea slowly disappear under layers of feedback, you know what we’re talking about.
Let’s fix this! Start with a good conversation with your team, agency, brand.
Please note that this cartoon is the work of Tom Fishburne and is copyrighted. To use or share it, please purchase a license from his website as we did.
Matt Davies is the co-founder of BetterBriefs, an advisory and training business that helps marketers write better briefs and deliver more impactful ideas. A highly awarded former agency strategist, having worked at Clemenger BBDO, Design Bridge, Arnold Worldwide, AJF Partnership, as well as running his own agency.
Together with co-founder Pieter-Paul von Weiler, he wrote the BetterBriefs Project and The Best Way for a Client to Brief an Agency, a practical guide for marketers to improve the quality of briefs, co-authored by Mark Ritson and published in partnership with the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA). Matt (together with Pieter-Paul) also led the BetterIdeas Project, a global study exposing the poor state of the creative evaluation process. The study aims to improve the creative decision-making and evaluation practices and was launched in partnership with the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and the IPA.