Ideas can be frozen
Living in Minnesota, we learn to live without freshness. The craving for baby asparagus in February should be denied, or you’ll end up with tasteless cardboard sticks from South America.
A good idea, however, one based on human truth and motivation, is like beef jerky, will last a long time.
Recently, I brought out my concepting notebooks from my days at the big ad agency and started looking for dead bodies that might be resuscitated, and I found quite a few. Many advertising ideas lend themselves to other mediums. All you have to do is change the characters a bit. Turn “Mom” to an overworked choo choo train and “voila,” the microwaveable dinner commercial idea you loved, is now an original children’s book. Starting tomorrow, I’m going to write a teen novella about a small business troll that needs free checking.
Ideas don’t go bad, they just lose their impact if they’re too timely. The trick is to come up with ideas that don’t involve a reality TV parody, and stick to a classic idea. If it could have played in the Catskills by a comedian named “Arty,” it’s probably gold. When you get an idea like that, for heaven’s sake don’t throw it away just because the creative director can’t see its value for the new facial scrub website. Stuff it in a notebook and put it in the icebox next to the freezer-burned frozen scallops you’ve been meaning to eat, and save it for later.
