1. @hannah_bo_banna
“jaws in space”
how to develop & pitch creative ideas
@hannah_bo_banna

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text
this is distilled

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we made this

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text
2.1m page views; 105k+ ‘likes’; 4.7k+ tweets; 1,055 LRDs
http://www.concerthotels.com/worlds-greatest-vocal-ranges

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a few years ago we made this

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text
it got just 31 ‘likes’

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we *still* don’t always get it right

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this stuff is *really* hard
ignore anyone who tells you otherwise

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coming up with a ‘good’ idea
is paramount

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but what do we mean by a ‘good’ idea?

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something that appears to have worked?

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pop quiz!

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raise your hands if you think this is a ‘good’ idea

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ready?

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618 LRDs

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ok, what about this one?

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ready?

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189 LRDs

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what about this one?

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ready?

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59 LRDs

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tricky, huh?

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it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking
‘guides get links’ - let’s do loads of guides!
BUT
it’s not always the case
&
over time formats can become less effective

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let’s try something else...
I’m going to show you 2 pieces - which got the most links?

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ready?

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64 LRDs

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181 LRDs

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ok, you’ve seen which got the most links,
but which got the most interactions on facebook?

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50k facebook interactions

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5k facebook interactions

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the relationship between social shares and links is not as
linear as you might expect

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it is incredibly tough to figure out
whether something is ‘good’ idea or not

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& most of us don’t have the luxury of
creating & launching a bunch of different things
before hitting on a winner

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we get fired

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so how do we get better?

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we started out with this

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http://www.concerthotels.com/worlds-greatest-vocal-ranges

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authors Chip & Dan Heath identified
6 factors make an idea ‘stick’:
simple
unexpected
concrete
credible
emotional
story

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& we’ve added one of our own:
simple
unexpected
concrete
credible
emotional
story
shareable

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this is hard to explain in the abstract,
so I’m going to use an example

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simple

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if you can’t explain it to a 6 year old,
you don’t understand it yourself
~ Albert Einstein

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‘how famous creative people work’

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unexpected

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text

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ok, so this may not make your jaw drop…
but it is a different take on the topic

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long form articles and listicles are the most popular formats
in the space, whereas this is visual & explorable

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concrete

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we’re going to
win the space race
~ not said by JFK

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‘win the space race’
is an abstraction
it’s intangible, no one knows what you mean

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we’re going to put
a man on the moon
~ JFK

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this isn’t just about the language you use

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well-executed data visualisation makes
concepts more concrete
you can only hold around 6 pieces of information in your
head, but you can take in much more than that
visually to determine patterns

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credible

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comes in two flavours:

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is the data credible?

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is this credible coming from podio?

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using data from other credible sources is a reasonably safe
bet for most brands

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be very careful if you’re commissioning your own data

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there are two modes of failure here

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a failure to gather statistically significant data
or weak methodology

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being self-serving
if a bingo company did a study that found people who
played bingo were happier than those who didn’t
would you think it credible?

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emotional

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this provokes an emotional reaction

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text

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does this piece?

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it does provoke curiosity
and
people are passionate about productivity
& the habits of successful people

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story

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have we uncovered a story?

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no, but this piece supports
the editorial around this topic

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shareable

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would you look good sharing this?

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makes you look smart
and/or
makes you look cultured
and/or
makes you look interested & interesting
and/or
makes you look like they care about being creative

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the ‘success’ framework is great,
but it has its drawbacks

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good ideas rarely
seem like good ideas
at their inception,
that’s what stops the majority of people from having them
~Drew Gummerson

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it’s a useful tool,
but it can be used as a weapon

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don’t use this to shoot ideas down,
use it to build ideas up

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how can we develop this idea to make it more
simple?
unexpected?
concrete?
credible?
emotional?
story-driven?
shareable?

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use it to evaluate or compare and contrast ideas to see
which are the strongest

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you don’t need to hit all 7
but more is more ☺

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but there’s another issue with the framework

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clients don’t always understand why they should care
about these criteria

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there’s insufficient onus on
why this is a good idea for their company

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we found that some of our best ideas
weren’t getting signed off

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we needed to get better at pitching ideas

99. @hannah_bo_banna@hannah_bo_banna
the high concept pitch for alien was
“jaws in space”

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that’s a lot of information in just 3 words

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the ship is not sleek & clean like in other sci-fi movies
this is grubby, broken, low-tech

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this film will be filled with tension & conflict,
not everyone will understand the danger they’re in

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you won’t see much of the predator until the end

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I could go on for hours...

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our aim was not to be able to pitch our ideas in 3 words

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but to distill our thinking & communicate
why our ideas were right for the client

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this is what we came up with

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how is this idea
relevant, resonant & different?

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I’ll deal with each in turn,
using the daily routines piece as an example

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relevant

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this is about ‘brand fit’
why is this the right thing for the company to do?

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podio’s strapline is
‘empowering you to work the way you want’
&
they target people in the creative industry

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‘daily routines’
places podio in the conversations people are already
having about how best to work,
without being self-serving

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resonant

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why will your target audience & target publishers
care about this?

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creativity & productivity are perpetually hot topics:

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people share this stuff,
so publishers want to publish this stuff

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& the publishers we want coverage from feature this stuff

123. @hannah_bo_banna(excerpt from a buzzsumo content analysis report)

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people will share our piece because it:
makes them look smart
and/or
makes them look cultured
and/or
makes them look interested & interesting
and/or
makes them look like they care about being creative

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different

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how is this different from what’s already out there?
how are we adding value?

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this data has been visualised before

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but this is a poster
it wasn’t built for the web

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this execution doesn’t allow you to
compare the creative routines of the people featured,
or explore the data, our execution will

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we use relevant, resonant, different
alongside the ‘SUCCESS’ framework

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it means our ideation process is more rigorous

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& it forces us to think harder about whether or not our ideas
make sense for our clients

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most importantly - it makes getting sign off
from clients easier

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how did it all go down?

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you will never be 100% confident

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658k page views; 33k+ ‘likes’; 10k+ tweets; 632 LRDs

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please note:

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results like this don’t just
*happen*

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we spent over 60 hours promoting this piece

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the bigger picture

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getting good at this stuff is hard

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there’s a few things we do
which we think have helped us get better

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focus on ideas, not formats

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text
an idea
is a novel combination of
previously unconnected elements
in a way that adds value

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an infographic is not an idea;
it’s a format

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further reading:
how to produce content people will share
http://dis.tl/MJ-share
how to produce better content ideas
http://dis.tl/MJ-idea
lessons in virality from axl rose
http://dis.tl/HS-axl

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take this sh*t seriously

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a few years ago we used to ‘present’ creative ideas like this:

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REDACTED
yep, it really was that bad...

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you won’t be surprised to hear that sign off was an issue

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today we present creative ideas
in person, with a slide deck
we also spend significantly longer on the ideation process

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we use these frameworks to build ideas up,
not knock them down

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good ideas come from everywhere,
it’s more important to
recognise a good idea
than to author it
~Jeanne Gang

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keep on keeping on

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we consistently work on improving our approach
& our processes

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good luck out there x

162. credits
Images:
alien: http://www.wired.com/2010/02/0205hr-giger-born-science-fiction-artist/
unexpected - http://thabto.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/shocked-face.jpg
daily rituals - http://24.media.tumblr.com/011d7a30de400a6f5f9244775f95781a/tumblr_mmg8etEJt81qzlz5go1_r1_1280.jpg
emotional - http://adland.tv/ooh/feed-sa-trolley-ambient-south-africa
swing - https://www.flickr.com/photos/21745851@N00/4805435840
facepalm - http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=facepalm
no finish line - http://www.quotesvalley.com/images/50/there-is-no-finish-line-5.jpg
danbo - https://www.flickr.com/photos/nomadic_lass/6889892777/in/set-72157629144987013
unicorn - http://queenofheartsonthesleeve.tumblr.com/post/58736423727/ok-not-much-but-here-it-is-3
Big love to to the wonderful Distilled folks who helped me put this together.

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Hannah Smith
Content Strategist, Distilled
caffeine addict; book worm;
would really like a unicorn...
send cat pictures or questions to:
hannah.smith@distilled.net