…was always the joke made about agencies presenting TV ideas back in the day.
The modern equivalent seems to be "we have an integrated idea where we invite people to star in our next ad/write our next ad/(re)develop our product/some other (vaguely pointless) exercise (delete as appropriate)".
Now before the comment floodgates open, don't get me wrong: I'm a fully signed up member of the people-centric social/digital world. And I always want ideas that can be lived out everywhere. My problem isn't with digital and/or integration, it's with bad ideas (in whatever media) and knee jerk pursuit of the latest 'in' thing without any consideration of whether it is the right 'thing' to do in the first place.
Because if I hear another lame and lazy "let's get the consumer to do it for us" idea (or the suggestion that ideas which don't have this quality are somehow doomed to failure simply for bein 'old fashioned') I think I'll scream.
Let's face it, for every Walker's Do Us A Flavour there are 99 ideas (maybe 999) that people couldn't give a stuff about (which applies to conventional advertising as well, natch).
Take the Oxo Factor, which came up in a recent meeting as an example of a great comms idea - be the star of our next ad (yawn…wake me up when it's over).
Now I could be doing Oxo and its agency a huge disservice (happy to be told I'm wrong), but I had never heard of this idea (so much for PR). And as far as I could tell from the website, only about 40 people had been bothered entered. And we were already being asked to vote on the winner from a final 5 shortlist (all pretty poor)
And that's the problem with most of these ideas: integrated they may be, but often people just can't be arsed (only 1000 entries for the high profile Peperami brief, most from art colleges probably). So you end up chucking your money away on a bad idea simply because it ticks all the right 'cool and now' boxes on the comms check list.
But at the end of the day life's just too short for most of us, and if you can't answer 'what's in it for me' we just won't bother (Walkers' Do Us A Flavour worked because huge sums of money were on offer).
Personally, I would rather have an idea, of whatever format/media (old school or new school), that effectively met client objectives, than slavishly trot out the latest new thing as the only possible answer, even if the idea itself is clearly pants and/or the approach isn't right for the audience/brand (cos, shock horror, not everyone spends their day on Twitter and Facebook).
Case in point: Richmond Sausages - a good old fashioned TV commercial (and not even the most 'creative' idea you will have seen on the box recently) which has generated amongst the highest ROI OHAL have ever measured in the food sector, helping drive sales over the £100m mark.
Because it was on brand and connected with its audience.
And not an iPhone app, Facebook group or UCG 'opportunity' in sight ;o)
