Dan Kennedy explains why the big idea matters in marketing. Most ads spend money without saying anything. Kennedy traces the concept from David Ogilvy through Jack Trout, arguing that differentiation is critical now because competitors copy fast and markets are cluttered.
It's in hundreds of catalogs, for example, it's in some retail. There's impact there. So those five things are what we're always after. Without a really big idea, it's very hard to accomplish. So probably the person most committed to it of the if you watch the show Mad Men of the Mad Men era, advertising, its first real golden age in America was David Ogilvy. And if you don't read them all, if you don't study them all, if you're going to read somebody, you should read Ogilvy. And Ogilvy was totally committed to the big idea.
Hello and welcome to this month's Masterclass. I'm Darcy Juarez here with Dan Kennedy. And Dan, you know, you talk a lot about we need to have a big idea when we are marketing, when we are doing our businesses. And so I'm really excited about this class because I want to dive deeper into when you say the big idea. So can we talk a little bit about its history and how the big idea became a thing in advertising?
It is the thing missing from an awful lot of advertising.
Yeah.
There's spending, saying nothing. And that's always been a problem. The greats fought it back in the 40s. The five problems haven't changed. Right. So we need to get somebody's attention. Yep. We need to interest them, we need to excite them. We ideally want them to take some action and we want them to remember us. So if there's not immediate action, we at least want memory impact. Yep. Right. If you look at somebody like my pillow at the beginning, all you could say he was accomplishing was selling pillows. Right? Right. But in the memory impact category, on the back of that, he was enormously successful because who doesn't know it? And who doesn't know it? Yeah. Nobody. Yeah. I mean, nobody. Everybody knows him. Everybody recognizes them. So he's accomplished what brand advertising tries to do at zero expense. And. And now when the product appears somewhere other than tv, it's in hundreds of catalogs, for example, it's in some retail, et cetera. There's impact there, right? Yep. It's in hundreds of catalogs, for example, it's in some retail. There's impact there. So those five things are what we're always after. And without a really big idea, it's very hard to accomplish. Probably the person most committed to it of the if you watch the show Mad Men of the Mad Men era of advertising, its first real golden age in America was. Was David Ogilvy. And if you don't read them all. If you don't study them all. If you're going to read somebody, you should read Ogilvy. And Ogilvy was totally committed to. To the big Idea. Trout wrote a book in 2000 summarizing his advertising philosophy. Just like if you go back and get Ogilvy on advertising, you'll get David's philosophy. There's also from Ogilvy a thing called Five Lanterns, which is like the five T's. The five. Right. Which was his internal preset tape to everybody they hired at the agency. I stole one from a Ogilvy and Mather office when I was very young, and I have it. But. But it. It's hard to get. But if you can get it, it's like, brilliant. But anyway, so Trout wrote a book. Now Fast forward to 2000. So Ogilvy was. Was on this in the 50s. Jack at 2000 wrote a book called Differentiate or Die. And he was right then, and he is even more right now because the clutter, the competition, the copycatting is unbelievable in quantity and speed. So you used to get to market with something and at least have a lag time before the imitator caught up. Now it's like, boom, boom. They're right there, right? I mean, Mary appears on Shark Tank this week with her new, you know, thingamabobber. And somebody's manufacturing one in China tomorrow. Yep. I mean, that's how fast it is. We used to have a year lag with infomercials. You got like 10 minutes. I mean, it's just that barrier to entry isn't there anymore. So the big idea that you can hold on to, that you can differentiate with is now more mission critical than ever.
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