Latest AD THEORY articles

Howard Draft: Introducing The Gunn Report 2009

Howard Draft, Executive Chairman of Draftfcb, served as Guest Editor of the 2009 Gunn Report. The fine folks at the Gunn Report were kind enough to share some of Howard’s thoughts on the most awarded ads and campaigns of the previous year or so. Howard pulls no punches; just because an ad won enough gold to outshine Fort Knox doesn’t mean he necessarily loved it, and he doesn’t shy away from telling you so.

How to Train Ideas to Come When They’re Called: Notes and Advice for Young People in Advertising PART THREE

What happens if you do something unexpected with your product or your medium or an everyday object? Many years ago, Volkswagen found a way to make the shape of their car say something about thrift in tough economic times (agency: Doyle Dane Bernbach, New York):

How to Train Ideas to Come When They’re Called: Notes and Advice for Young People in Advertising PART TWO

Let’s talk about another process for idea generation. This process isn’t specific to advertising, but it can work very well for what we do. It’s called SCAMPER, and it is attributed to a writer named Bob Eberle. SCAMPER is an acronym in which each letter suggests at least one exercise we should try when facing any creative challenge.

How to Train Ideas to Come When They’re Called: Notes and Advice for Young People in Advertising PART ONE

In this article, I’m hoping to impart some useful information about advertising ideas and how one arrives at them. I’m hoping this information will bring comfort and peace and a touch more confidence. Not to you, of course, because I know that you personally have no particular anxiety about your ability to produce great ideas on demand. [...]

Conversational Capital: Rituals

As some of you might be aware, Sid Lee, the on-fire Montreal ad agency, has produced a book entitled “Conversational Capital”, and has asked us at ihaveanidea (and by extension our own readers) to give it the once-over. Read it, poke and prod at it, find truths in it, find faults in it, whatever. Kind [...]

Luke Sullivan: Brand = Adjective

ihaveanidea is pleased to present the fourth in a series of excerpts from Luke Sullivan’s third edition of his renowned book Hey Whipple, Squeeze This. To order your copy today, click here. Essential pre-Portfolio Night reading here, folks.
Each brand has its own core value. Dan Wieden says it another way: Brands are verbs. “Nike exhorts, [...]

Luke Sullivan: The Enemies Of Advertising, #2: The Koncept Krusher 2000

ihaveanidea is pleased to present the third in a series of updates and excerpts from Luke Sullivan’s third edition of his renowned book Hey Whipple, Squeeze This. To order your copy today, click here. It makes an excellent gift for St. Patrick’s Day, the Vernal Equinox, or any other celebration this month.
This actually happened.
After several [...]

Luke Sullivan: The Enemies Of Advertising, #1

ihaveanidea is pleased to present the second in a series of updates and excerpts from Luke Sullivan’s soon to be released third edition of his renowned book Hey Whipple, Squeeze This. To order your copy today, click here. Hell, buy a few copies and qualify for free shipping or something.
In a perfect world, it works [...]

Luke Sullivan: Big Honkin’ Ideas

ihaveanidea is pleased to present the first in a series of excerpts from Luke Sullivan’s soon to be released third edition of his renowned book Hey Whipple, Squeeze This. To order your copy today, click here. Tell ‘em Ignacio sent you.
Because I am frequently accused of being old, I feel the need to point out [...]

The Next Creative Frontier

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read or write; they will be those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. — Alvin Toffler
Only advertising people with their heads firmly planted in the sand don’t realize that the traditional advertising model is broken, and it’s only a matter of time before [...]