Try having lots of bad ideas
"To get good ideas, you have to have a lot of ideas and throw away the bad ones. The knack is to recognize the problems you have some chance of solving." —Linus Pauling
An idea about bacteria
Many years ago in biology class, a teacher introduced us to petri dishes.
We diligently swabbed several classroom items, then ran the swab across the dish substrates. A few hours later, we saw bacteria. A few days later, the bacteria filled the dish.
That’s why bacteria is so powerful, our teacher said: they replicate quickly.
And because they replicate so quickly, he continued, they change quickly.
One generation may be weak, the next generation a bit stronger. Interacting, as they do, with their environment, encountering challenges.
Some persist, some die, the ones who live tend to be stronger relative to their local requirements.
That’s one way, our teacher said, that scientists study heritable change over generations.
Anyway, the best way to have a strong bacteria is to have lots of bacteria.
An idea about content
Many years ago I worked for a client that published content.
Articles, blog posts, social posts, stuff like that.
They diligently crafted each article and post. They edited Google Docs for hours. They’d spend days on rounds of writing, rewriting, dotting I’s and crossing t's, ensuring fidelity to detail, burnishing each piece to a high shine.
Then, they would send that preciously crafted thing out into the world, listening for the weak echoes of any reaction at all.
Of course they were doing everything exactly backwards.
They were optimizing their things before they tested their things, and accordingly optimized a lot of things that would never have made it past testing.
They key, they were surprised to learn, is to generate a lot of things.
Some of those things will die.
Some of those things will live, interacting, as they do, with their environment, encountering challenges.
The ones that live are the ones that are stronger relative to their local requirements.
Anyway, the best way to make good content is to make lots of content.
An idea about AI
One way of creating a lot of ideas, and quickly, is to use AI.
For example, here is an AI idea:
And here is another AI idea:
These are ok ideas!1
They are not great ideas!
But that doesn’t matter. These ideas come cheap. In point of fact, they were free. You can, quite quickly, make a lot of them.
You can talk about them, and discard them, and improve them. And by and by, you will come up with a better idea.
And the process of getting to a better idea will happen a smidge quicker, because you got all the shit conceptions out on the table, toot suite.
That’s how creativity works, of course.
The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.2
An AI has an idea
This is all to say that the point of AI tools, for now, isn’t to spit out brilliant ideas.
The point of AI tools, for now, is to spit out crap ideas so you don’t have to.
Every AI tool is an idea tool, and here are three playing directly in the creative agency space.3
uncreative.agency
“The world's first fully automated creative agency, powered by AI.” You give it a brand, a medium, an audience, and a call to action. It spits out three ideas inside an agency-like deck PDF, sent to your email (see F-150 examples above).
The PDF part is interesting. It’s a gimmick of course. It doesn’t really help you keep the creative process going. Better to produce content in an editable format. Give this to me in Google Slides.
But the PDF feature also showcases how an AI can fit within an existing workflow. And how easy it is to automate certain tasks that creative agencies do now.
POV you’re a CMO: Why are we paying agencies six figures to come up with ideas?
POV you're an agency exec: Why are we paying deck makers six figures to make decks all year?4
daydrm
“AI tool for creative advertising ideas.” Great, did an AI write that? Punch it up. Wait. Oh god. Was that written for SEO? It’s robots all the way down.
Anyway. Daydrm uses a briefing structure similar to uncreative. You give it a brand, a product, a content type, and an emotional benefit.
Unlike uncreative, which generates the benefit based on your brand input, daydrm asks you to BYOBenefit.
I used Ford again, and tried to mimic a bit of the brand’s IRL launch positioning.
Here’s the brief I gave it:
Bringing performance to the people. The Ford F-150 Lightning offers an onboard generator to power your lifestyle, and a spacious under-hood frunk that accommodates your diverse needs. {viral youtube vid}
What came back:
Title: Live Life on the Lightning.
Description: In this viral film to promote the Ford F-150 Lightning, we'll meet a group of people who have decided to live life on the Lightning. We'll watch as they explore the world in their F-150 Lightning, with its onboard generator powering their lifestyle. We'll see them use the spacious frunk to store all sorts of items, from camping gear to musical instruments. We'll also watch as they take advantage of the truck's performance features, such as its powerful engine and off-road capability. The film will be set to an upbeat soundtrack and will feature vibrant visuals that capture the sense of adventure and freedom that comes with living life on the Lightning. The film will end with a call to action, urging viewers to experience life on the Lightning with Ford's F-150 Lightning.
seenapse
“Meet your new creative partner”.
Developed by my friend and agency creative and Go tutor Rafa Jimenez, who’s positioned Seenapse as an assistant to the agency creative process.
Like uncreative and daydrm, you give seenapse a series of variables that are common to the agency process, e.g., the product name, the benefit, and the occasion. For some formats, like social posts, you can also provide variables like campaign concept and messaging pillars.
Then, unlike other engines, you select how “unexpected” you want the ideas to be.
Here’s the brief I gave it:
The Ford F-150 Lightning is a truck that offers an onboard generator to power your lifestyle. Make a video script for the launch of the product. Make the ideas very unexpected.
What came back:
We open with a lightning bolt filling the screen. We then hear a loud roar and see headlights beaming through the dark showing us an F-150 Lightning truck on an empty road. A narrator states Introducing our newest asset, ready to provide power you never thought possible. As we see sparks flying from the generator, he continues; …to light up your life. The Ford F-150 Lightning.
We see a montage of cats playing, running and seeming indomitable. We hear the voice-over saying Cats always land on their feet - just like our new F-150 Lightning. The camera then transitions to show this amazing truck with its backup generator powering an outdoor party atmosphere or a mobile office set up. A Ford logo appears as we close out, adding: Life never stands still in your F-150 Lightning.
We see the Ford F-150 Lightning, driving in a beautiful landscape full of mountains and meadows. Voice-over: Create your success with power, design and discipline. As we zoom into details of the truck: Voice over: Introducing, the all new Ford F-150 lightning; bring power to wherever you need it. The logo appears at the end with “Bring Power To Wherever You Need It”
The next idea
The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.
It’s not hard to imagine a near future, where you don’t have to click a button every time to generate a new idea.
Instead, you click a button to tell a tool to start generating ideas. Something that keeps churning out ideas, over a set period of time, like a service that runs in the background.
Maybe it sends you a new batch of ideas every hour.
Maybe it just asks for thumbs up or thumbs down.
Maybe the agency that wins is the agency with the quickest thumbs.
Delightful resources
12-Step Brand and Content Framework
The Creative Problem Solving Reading List
You don’t get it, you’re not the point
Make relationships, not things
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These ideas were created by uncreative.agency. Here was my brief: Come up with ideas for a series of tv commercials for Ford, that will make blue collar workers buy a Ford F-150 Lightning.
Uncreative took that brief and generated the following challenge [bolding mine]: Showcase the power and capabilities of the truck, emphasizing the features that make it an ideal choice for those who need a reliable and rugged vehicle for work. Focus on the Lightning's capability to tackle challenging terrain, its innovative design and its overall reliability. Emphasize the value of the truck and inspire blue collar workers to make the Ford F-150 Lightning their workhorse.
It’s interesting that the AI was able to add context to the brief, though I wouldn’t have chosen certain details (e.g., marketing for the F-150 has focused more on “builders”, the battery, and the frunk). The first idea about speed is a throwaway. The second idea is very similar to Ford’s actual online marketing, except Ford featured people of diverse backgrounds using e.g. the frunk for various errands.
Probably Linus Pauling said some version of this. It’s also a common refrain inside seenapse.
My first job in tech journalism back in the year of our lord 2005 was reviewing Web 2.0 sites and tools. Now here we are again in Web 3. I am a strange loop.
Beautiful.ai is pretty good. Definitely more of an in-house corporate tool than something that would replace agency designers or visually stunning, bespoke use cases for the moment.