The lightbulb moment
THE PRODUCTION BLOG – IDEATION
It’s 3 AM and very quiet – great creative thinking time for ideation.
Now the studio is technically at a level I’m happy (for now) it’s time to get back working on the commercial side of things.
Before I put pen to paper and start to mind-map out the problem I can hear the voice of my marketing professor echoing in the distance – the need to have a market-orientated approach followed by research and segmentation, before any of the other shiny marketing branding and communications stuff.
With every new project there’s the question of “where do you start?” – metaphorically I think of it as a wide level landscape.
For new projects, I usually begin my brainstorming sessions with a Business Model Canvas overarching schema and mind map out the Canvas sections onto the piece of paper. (Note: In many ways, it’s a bit Edward De Bonos six hats methodology)
With the customer at the centre (that’s the circle in the image above), it’s finding out what problems do they have, how do we provide a solution and what are the customer benefits? The aim of this process to explore possibilities and then develop a clearer focus and plan.
Marketing Professor Mark Ritson resonates again in my head again “Researching and developing your customer segmentation is key to then creating the strategy and downstream tactical communications”
The next few hours of brainstorming or ideation I break down my potential customers based upon the answers we’d like to know – it’s like a large mixing bowl of spaghetti – every idea or thought like a strand of pasta coming from different angles and intertwined.
Like making a great spag-bog there’s no one way to best – it’s a matter of the ingredients and skills – the understanding that with every project or business there are thousands of different ways to the destination.
The question is – what is the most effective way to achieve the objective?
A few more hours, then suddenly 💡 – the light-bulb moment! I ring an old business partner to quickly test the hypothesis – she gets it – she loves it – it makes sense – it leverages strengths – it’s easy to understand.
Very quickly I can see how to tie in all the loose spaghetti strands into the idea.
Now to get it from paper onto the computer and test it out?
EXCITED…and now hungry.
To be continued.
