Ideas the Winnie-the-Pooh way

Don’t look for answers. Ask questions.

Ad agencies’ standard claim to fame is that they think out of the box. That’s a terrible cliché. One that does a disservice to the people who do, in fact, have an extraordinary ability to come up with the most unexpected ideas.

For clients whose train of thought is a slow choo-choo on the straight and narrow, the ability to be creative must seem like a god-send. A real value-add.

In 1992, a Frenchman, Jean-Marie Dru, upped the ante when he defined a creative ethos for his agency at the time, BDDP. He called it DISRUPTION®. Today, Monsieur Dru is the Chairman of TBWA and they champion his ethos in a big way: We start with DISRUPTION® at the core of everything we do. DISRUPTION® is a tool for change and an agent for growth: a working methodology and a life-view philosophy.

You can tell how important DISRUPTION® is because of big letters and the little ®. Err, just one thought: what if DISRUPTION® is not what is required? What if, say, quiet reassurance is the panacea for the situation at hand? What then? And, oh, another thought: what box are you thinking out of?

As you can probably tell from the tone of this piece, we have our own take on out-of-the-box thinking. Don’t try it. Don’t sit staring at a blank piece of paper until drops of blood appear on your forehead. Instead, try to understand the problem. Really understand it.

Winnie-the-Pooh expresses this methodology nicely: “Poetry and Hums aren’t things which you get, they’re things which get you. And all you can do is go where they can find you.”