Photo by H A M A N N on Unsplash
Perhaps the second greatest idea-killer after, “It’s already been done,” is “That’s low-hanging fruit.”
The phrase, often used with disdain by creative directors when judging work, implies that the strategy, concept, tactic or deck you’ve just presented is within reach of amateurs, requires little effort to produce, and thus isn’t great enought to be worth considering.
All professional creative people, be they writers, art directors, designers or technologists, are trained to go for what’s new and unusual. We’re supposed to challenge ourselves to climb beyond the easy ideas our mothers (and well-meaning account people) point out to us, go out on a limb, and pluck the perfect produce that lies beyond.
All well and good, if everybody’s aligned on procuring award-winning produce.
But what if the people paying you to climb idea trees don’t want a $1,000,000 apple? What if they want fruit at scale because they’re in the business of making pies? And the most efficient way to deliver isn’t to spend days climbing trees but to give one a rigorous shake and catch whatever falls out?
Too often creatives and even some agencies fail because they spend far too much time trying to get the golden fruit way out on some slender branch, only to fall flat on their face at the pitch meeting because their ideas aren’t ripe enough for public consumption or worse: they’re rotten to the core.
Meanwhile, we ignore the bounty beneath us and let someone else use it to satiate our customers. So that the next time our customers are hungry, it’s someone else that gets asked:
“Got anything great?”
