Trumblog

I was in a presentation about breakthrough ideas the other day.  We went through ads and campaigns from 2009 that used had energy and excitement behind them, but ultimately I couldn’t see how any of these ideas were truly breakthrough. Letting your fans know about special offers via Facebook and Twitter, not breakthrough.  Those mediums are specifically for communicating with an audience and giving your friends a benefit that you don’t give to others is expected.  Using a music playlist to express the attitude of a car that you are selling is no more breakthrough than using “Pink Moon” to sell VWs, even if you have your audience involved in making that playlist.  An integrated campaign across multiple social networks is not breakthrough; it’s the right thing to do, like maintaining a consistent message and brand across TV, radio and print ads is.  Is a stunt that begins online and is then covered by the mainstream media a breakthrough when compared to Edward Bernays’ legendary marching women smokers that were used to create news and ultimately sell Lucky Strikes to a new audience?

I’m not saying that these non-breakthrough ideas aren’t valuable, that they didn’t achieve results or were not the right thing to do.  You should use communicate with fans via Twitter and Facebook, music and marketing should be linked, involving your audience in defining the brand is a good thing, you better be running an integrated campaign and congratulations for breaking through the clutter and getting your message  spread via mainstream media.  These ideas are good, strong, mainstream marketing ideas, but they are not breakthrough.

Breakthrough ideas are rare.  A breakthrough marketing idea is not as simple as using a channel in it’s intended way and to it’s highest degree (if that can be considered simple).   Breakthrough ideas use a channel or service in a novel or unique way. They turn expectations on their head and make us think abut things differently.  The best are so simple that we feel they were sitting out there all along and so obvious, but also so new.  Using Facebook to build your fan base is an expected use of the channel, but the Burger King Whopper Sacrifice turned that idea on its head by playing with the value of a friend.  The Axion concert banner ads that made you look at the space of a banner ad in a different way is breakthrough.

There are a lot of great videos on YouTube with great stories or told in creative ways or produced in unique and original ways, but ultimately they are videos just like the ones that have been produced for a century.  But the interaction that is allowed through annotation does give you a different type of interaction with video like this piano.

All that is to say that not all great marketing comes from breakthrough ideas and not all breakthrough ads result in great marketing.  Breakthrough by definition is uncommon.  It’s surprising.  Is it always the right thing to do for your client?  So think about your ideas that are considered breakthrough.  Are they really unique and challenging or merely (again this is certainly much more difficult than the word “merely” implies) great marketing.  Should you even deliver breakthrough ideas for every campaign?  Let me know what you think.

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