The second idea

Every creative review I have sat in has the same moment. The tenth variant is on the screen, the room has been nodding for twenty minutes, and somebody asks what the second idea is. Nobody can answer.

Ten things on the wall: a square one, a vertical one, one with the price, one with a face, one with the caption moved up. Ten files, one idea, dressed ten ways.

The confusion is about what an idea is. A format is not an idea. A crop is not an idea. A new colour on the same line is the same line.

A second idea answers a different objection. The first ad says the coffee is good; the second says it arrives in Riyadh before nine. A second idea speaks to a different person. The first is for the woman buying for herself; the second is for the son buying it for his mother. A second idea chooses a different moment. The first meets the customer on a Sunday morning; the second meets them at eleven on a Thursday night, hungry and tired of deciding.

Objection, person, moment. Change one and you have a second idea. Change none and you have a resize.

So the smallest useful thing a team can do before it opens the design tool is write down the objections. Why would someone not buy this? Too expensive, too far, not for me, not today, I do not believe you. Five lines on a page. Each one is an ad that does not exist yet, different from the others in a way a crop never is.

Then hand the list to the studio. A supply chain can only make what it is given. Give it formats and it makes formats. Give it objections and it finally has something to make.