Okay, so the idea. This is the fun part, the part that I enjoy the most. So you've got a good understanding of the brand, you have your brief kind of instructions, you know about the audience and what they like what they don't like. You're full of inspiration. And now you're ready to get down to brass tacks and write down that idea. The best piece of advice I ever received in advertising, it was the first piece of advice I ever received.

Thank you, Dave Anderson, who at the time was working at grey in London. And it's such a simple piece of piece of advice, but always always pen people with you just always, yes, you can tap things on your phone. But there's something very, very quick about immediate about a pen and paper. I I always carry a notebook. You know, I'm one of those tedious people you see in restaurants and bars with one of these you know, but honestly, ideas come and go So fleeting that can evaporate like clouds on a summer's day. So get those ideas down, even if it seems a bit silly at the time.

It's amazing what happens when you review your work. And you think, Oh, yeah, that's interesting. And you can build off it, and work from there. So notebook is first and just start writing down notions and ideas. And then think what you'd like to do. And it's, it comes have have faith in your imagination.

There are dozens, millions of brainstorming techniques out there. I have a brainstorming guide as part of the guerilla marketing school which you can have for free, you just download it. If you don't want, you can email me if you have trouble downloading it for some reason. And I offer nine tips for brainstorming that I've found very valuable. Now you can come up with ideas yourself, I spent half my time doing that. Or you can come up with ideas with other people brainstorming, which is a really popular way in the ad world to develop ideas of course, and it's a great way to To justify all those meetings and all those people I'm not going to get into brainstorming here.

I just think you know, the basic rules are, be respectful, work with people you trust. Enjoy it, give yourself enough time, have fun. brainstorming should be a pleasure, you know, which never can be stressful because you have money and time restraints and high expectations if, if your client is really looking to you to solve some serious problems for their business, but good creativity, in my mind, comes from a place of pleasure and fun and curiosity and interest in all this kind of good stuff. That's not to say that fear and restraint can't produce brilliant works of art, you know, when people write novels in prison, for example, but that's not how I want to work. So that's my advice to you is have fun, and the idea will come. So anything else to talk about ideas?

Really just get your ideas down. I sometimes get asked how many ideas to present to a client sometimes I really feel like one idea I'm like, that's the idea that they want this fits the brief really really well. And it's gonna work great. But that's a risky maneuver just to present one idea so I present between three and four. Depending on how the idea session has gone. Idea sessions have gone I don't believe in just putting stuff out for the sake of it.

I sometimes put in outlier ideas just really crazy ideas I would love to see happen I don't tend to push it at it and I wonder if the client will be brave enough to do this and when they are brave enough to do some of the the sort of the kind of crazier ideas, hesitant use with crazy or just the more imaginative the more risky one is the ones that are new, you know, present real novelty in terms of it. They're the hard ones to sell. Because often the client just has to take a risk and do it. And more often than not, it's those ideas that are the best. So for me, novelty, plus utility equals a good idea. You know, that's kind of my little formula.

I have my head. But, you know, the rules about ideas are this. There's no rules, just whatever works for you. Whatever makes you feel comfortable, and imaginative and playful. Use it, you know, use use what works for you. And soon enough, you'll have ideas written down, and then you can start to research them.

Make sure the plausible see if anyone else has done them, which you want to avoid, of course, and that leads us nicely onto the last tip, which is all about production.