Alexey Ivanov - How to Create an Idea If You Are Not Ogilvy

Fig. 1.8. Guerilla advertising of sports shoes.

Try to subtract an important part. The one that used to be considered a significant and indispensable thing. Perhaps a wonderful discovery awaits you there. Much more often than it is generally thought, creativity is about reduction, subtraction, the abandonment of superfluous and unnecessary parts.

Much more often than it is generally thought, creativity is about reduction, subtraction, the abandonment of superfluous and unnecessary parts.

Take a look at the next image (see Fig. 1.9.).

Do you know what it is?

An annual meeting of single, good looking, straight, emotionally-stable, financially-secure, intelligent men looking for a long-term commitment.

Drawn by Juriy Gerasimov

Fig. 1.9. The ideal man has just one shortcoming—he doesn’t exist.

Many years ago, this picture became the trigger for me that shot out with the idea of a TV commercial for the Coca-Cola company. Here is its script. It’s early morning. The sea. Sandy beach. We hear the cries of seagulls and the sound of waves. Opened red umbrella branded with white logo of the famous drink.

We watch the picture from the height of bird flight.

The first guest comes under the umbrella and orders a glass of fizzy drink. Of course, we do not see him from the top but it is easy to guess what is happening. The second man is coming to the shed from another side. Then a couple of teenagers arrive from the third direction.

Try to subtract an important part. The one that used to be considered a significant and indispensable thing. Perhaps a wonderful discovery awaits you there.

The sun rises higher. We can realize this by noticing the rapidly diminishing shadow cast by the umbrella. The air temperature is clearly rising. The beach is becoming more and more crowded. The number of those who come under the umbrella from different directions to cool off during a hot, summer day multiplies dramatically.

It’s nothing special, is it?

Now imagine that the situation described happens, but people are not displayed. Instead, we draw the feet traces left in the sand (see Fig. 1.10.).

The idea of MasterUm, Moscow, Russia, drawn by Juriy Gerasimov

Fig. 1.10. The final shot of the author’s TV commercial for the world’s largest beverage company.

We see only the branded umbrella under which only the path of the traces of bare feet. Then there is another path. Then two more footprints appear on the sand surface. The action goes on until the moment when the whole area around the tent becomes covered by traces of human feet.

Chapter 2

Divide et impera

“An elephant consists of a trunk, ears and a hippo.”

Life observation

In 1936 one Parisian atelier—a fancy workshop—mailed templates of fashionable hats in its shop to Athens. The manager of the atelier feared (not without a reason) that their competitors would copy templates at the very period of the delivery. How to protect the patterns from copying?

Here is another situation. Just recently one of our bank clients wanted to advertise loans to individuals secured by the cost of client’s personal car (logbook loans). The main benefit of this proposal was that the client continued to use his car after the loan. The car did not need to be left at the disposal of the bank, as is usually required.

All we had in our agency was a picture of the car. It could be easily bought in any photo stock. We had no money for the complex staged shooting. How to deliver the main advantage of the bank in the format of print layout?

How to prevent competitors from copying the patterns of fashionable hats on their delivery route from Paris to Athens?

Let me tell you the third situation. After production moved to factories in Thailand and Taiwan, the world-renowned corporation Reebok faced a serious problem. Some local workers were not the best example of honest and decent people in the world. They not only stole shoes directly from the factories, but also some of them established a delivery channel directly to the US market at rock bottom prices!

Punitive measures didn’t have any effect. Mass theft in factories went on and on. The company carried significant losses. How to overcome the major inclining to the theft of Reebok company’s local staff?

Now to answers and solutions, which are the most interesting part. I’ll start with the banking problem since the process of searching for advertising ideas has passed before my eyes. We came up with 24 options. Each of them carried the right message to the consumer with more-or-less acceptable degrees of expression.

But all options demanded studio shooting and unfortunately none of them was sharp or to-the-point. Every time, something appeared to be missing. Or on the contrary the idea was too difficult to understand on the spot.

We felt the creative block. At some point it became clear that within the single image there was no solution. But if we split the layout it would produce a graceful and almost mathematically tuned solution.

It was enough to show two pictures of the same car. Before receiving the loan and after getting the loan there were absolutely no changes (see Fig. 2.1.). That was the promise that we had to deliver.

With kind permission of MasterUm, Moscow, Russia

Fig. 2.1. Advertising solutions which you cannot get with just one image.

What did they come up with at Reebok? It was the very simple and elegant way out which reduced the “value” of theft to zero. Production was divided: Taiwan began to produce shoes only for the left foot. Thailand produced shoes just for the right foot. Shoes were put together for sale only once they arrived in the United States. Thus, theft at the local factories was eradicated completely.

How did Reebok solve the problem of mass theft in its factories in Thailand and Taiwan?

Reebok as before enjoyed a high price for the dealers. The top management of the corporation could sleep peacefully and not be afraid of market dumping. Actually, the same technique, though in microscopic scale, is used in many shoe shops when they put just one shoe from each pair in the showrooms.

Should I tell you the decision the hostess of the Parisian atelier came up with? I hope that now you can easily formulate it yourself. I will not deprive you of this innocent pleasure.

In my personal collection there are dozens of real-life problems of many different areas—from medicine to nuclear physics—that can be solved in a similar manner. But no doubt you have caught the basic idea.

It is a very strong creative tool to divide into pieces what we perceive as an indivisible unit. Have a look at the next layout (see Fig. 2.2.).

With kind permission of TBWA, Bangkok, Thailand

Fig. 2.2. Stain remover erases impurities at the moment they appear.