Direct response marketers understand the need for a Big Idea. But do other marketers?
These days, it’s so easy to be distracted by new channels and media, some of the foundational principles get overlooked. The Big Idea is one such principle.
As David Ogilvie said, “It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night.”
Quite simply, if you emphasize too many ideas, you emphasize none of them. So every piece of marketing should have a one big idea.
The problem is that few people understand Big Ideas. And even those who do can have difficulty finding one.
The Big Idea in Direct Response, Online Marketing and more…
Although it was first introduced as an advertising principle, it holds true for direct response, online marketing, content marketing and more.
What is the Big Idea? It’s the principle idea you want your prospect to walk away with after reading your promotion. In English class, your teacher called it a theme. But in marketing, it’s a much richer concept.
The Big Idea is a bit like a metaphor. It takes an idea, simplifies it, then gives it a handle so it’s easy to carry around.
Often it’s visual in nature. The picture it evokes, along with the sales pitch, brings the product to life, making it much more appealing than benefits alone could have done.
Do you know a Big Idea when you see one?
Even the master, Ogilvie, reported having trouble recognizing a Big Idea when he saw one. “I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea. I am supposed to be one of the more fertile inventors of big ideas, but in my long career as a copywriter I have not had more than 20, if that.”
For the rest of us, that’s hopeful.
Or not, depending on how you look at it.
Nevertheless, how can you know a Big Idea when you see it? Ogilvie offers these five questions:
- Did it make me gasp when I first saw it?
- Do I wish I had thought of it myself?
- Is it unique?
- Does it fit the strategy to perfection?
- Could it be used for 30 years?
Two distinguishing characteristics set Big Ideas apart: They are simple and timeless. If your idea is complicated in any way, it’s still too small.
How do Direct Response writers find Big Ideas?
Notice how Ogilvie refers to the creation of a Big Idea. He says they are “invented.”
That’s an important distinction. You won’t find your Big Ideas in a product’s documentation. It hasn’t been written down anywhere or stashed among your statistics.
That’s because the Big Idea isn’t a benefit wrapped up in shiny paper. It’s a fresh way of looking at something we’ve looked at so long, we don’t see it any more.
It’s made by right-brained, imaginative synapses that no could can possibly track, much less describe. I mean, think about it. Who knows how Einstein came up with the Theory of Relativity? It was an intuitive leap.
And that’s exactly how Big Ideas come into being.
So where should you look for the Big Idea?
That depends on you as the writer.
But regardless how you write, before you can conceive a Big Idea, you must feed your mind with all the relevant facts and figures that could never qualify as Big Ideas all by themselves.
So do your research, then let your mind go.
One ad man finds his ideas by putting his feet on his desk and discussing movies with his partner. Another lounges on the sofa in his office.
Most of mine come to life in that dusty twilight just before I fall asleep or in the moments before I wake up.
Ogilvie suggests a long walk or a hot bath.
What are your thoughts about Big Ideas? In the craze for Marketing 3.0, have you found Big Ideas falling to the wayside? Are they still relevant? And if so, where you do you find them?