The World Needs More Fights

Posted on March 10, 2010 - Filed Under Pitching Ideas | 2 Comments

That’s right. I said it. The world need more fights. More bare knuckle brawling. More punches to the face. Why? Because compromise kills ideas.
We live in a world where people are too willing to play nice. Nobody wants to offend the other person. And what suffers is ideas. In order to get a concept [...]

Add Some {Brackets}

Posted on August 27, 2009 - Filed Under Pitching Ideas | Leave a Comment

I stumbled on some sneaky wisdom from Seth on how to better sell stuff through:
If you need to get your audacious proposal/clever ad/new project past your boss, go ahead and add some gratuitous brackets here and {there}.
“Hey, what are these weird brackets doing here,” she might say.
“Oh, I like them. I think they add drama [...]

7 Things Picking Up Girls Taught Me About Selling Ideas

Posted on February 3, 2009 - Filed Under Pitching Ideas | 5 Comments

On Saturday, I was out at a bar for a friend’s birthday party. The Canucks were sucking, so I decided to go and make some new friends (of the female persuasion). After each excursion, I would return to my friends and they proceeded to discuss what had just happened.
It was during one of these discussions [...]

Japanese Soda Bottles

Posted on January 28, 2009 - Filed Under On Ideation, Pitching Ideas | Leave a Comment

In the search for fresh ideas, many of us tend to over complicate things. The most creative ideas are those that are radically simple. The ones that are rooted in common sense. They make you smack yourself on the forehead and say “Why didn’t I think of that?”
There is a traditional Japanese soda called Ramune. [...]

One Question With Dave Trott

Posted on November 6, 2008 - Filed Under Pitching Ideas | Leave a Comment

I’ve written before about Dave Trott. He’s one of those guys who has so much advertising experience that he oozes knowledge. Luckily, the “ooze” is packaged in awesome stories. David was recently touting the benefits of reading George Lois’s (out of print) book The Art of Advertising. Not for the great work, but for the [...]

Sunday Morning Regrets

Posted on October 20, 2008 - Filed Under Pitching Ideas | 1 Comment

One of the most terrifying experiences is to wake up on a Sunday morning with a pile of regrets of what you did the night before. You get chills down your spine and feel something deep in the pit of your stomach. Then you try to push the incidents out of your mind by distracting [...]

Why I Trust Comedians

Posted on September 17, 2008 - Filed Under Pitching Ideas | Leave a Comment

I was reading Seth’s article on political spin and how we all have good bullshit detectors that allow us to sift through the circus of lies surrounding politics. The article sparked me to send him this video from The Daily Show on political hypocrisy. I found it ironic that the most trusted source for news [...]

Pitching Ideas Is Theatre

Posted on September 1, 2008 - Filed Under Pitching Ideas | Leave a Comment

Amateur theatre is campy. It tells the story in an awkward fashion that leaves you with the core ideas. Good professional theatre is inspiring. It draws you into the drama. It invokes emotions. You leave the playhouse elated. The same happens with pitches. Too often, people pitch in campy fashion hoping that the ideas themselves [...]

24 Hours Before A Pitch

Posted on August 20, 2008 - Filed Under Pitching Ideas | Leave a Comment

What are most people doing 24 hours before a big pitch? Making last minute changes to their ideas. Reworking the content. Panicking. What should they be doing? Practicing. Practicing their presentation. Why? Because when it comes to selling ideas, the presentation matters more than the ideas themselves.
Unique ideas are intangible. You can only imagine how [...]

Advice from “Life’s A Pitch”

Posted on October 18, 2007 - Filed Under Pitching Ideas | Leave a Comment

I came across an article that someone has given to me some time ago and found it relevant to yesterday’s post regarding selling your ideas. It contains some sage advice that I have been able to apply with success in my own presentations. According to Stephen Bayley and Roger Mavity, authors of [...]