A methodology for

producing ideas
Excerpt from Mario Pricken’s book
Creative Advertising
ISBN 0-500-28476-8
Contents
1) Without words

2) Mixing and matching

3) Comparative juxtaposition

4) Repetition and accumulation

5) Exaggeration

6) Turn it right around

7) Omission and suggestion

8) Paradoxes and optical illusions

9) Provocation and shock tactics

10) Playing with time

11) A change of perspective

12) Spoofs and parodies

13) Symbols and signs

14) Come and play

15) Telling stories

16) Absurd, surreal, bizarre

17) Take it literally

18) Alter the product

19) Alternative uses

20) Double meanings

21) Play with words

22) In the beginning was the word

23) Reframing

24) Metaphor and analogy

25) Break out of the frame

26) Alternative Media

1) Without words
How could the USP be depicted without words?
Are there scenes or situations in which the product benefit could
be conveyed without words?
How can the benefit be portrayed in one picture?
How might the USP be communicated in a silent film?
How can the benefit be summed up without words in a simple
picture?
How could a story be told in simple sign language?

2) Mixing and matching

How can the product be combined with something else in order to
make the USP clearer?:
Mix the two together?
Collage?
Selection?
Rearrangement?
Combine several objects to make one?
How can the problem and solution be combined to make the
product message unambiguously clear in a single picture?

3) Comparative juxtaposition
What before and after comparison could underline the product
benefit?
What can the product be compared with, to make the benefit
obvious at a glance?
What kind of juxtaposition could represent both the problem and
the solution in surprising, provocative or humorous terms?
How can the benefit be communicated by comparing the product
with something from a completely unrelated context?
4) Repetition and accumulation
How can the product benefit be emphasised by repetition?
How can repetition attract attention, and represent the problem
situation in a witty, provocative or exaggerated way?
How can the benefit be reinforced by an accumulation of problem
situations?

5) Exaggeration
What exaggeration could represent the benefit more forcefully?:
What can be added?
Make it bigger? Longer? Heavier? Thicker?
Give it added value?
Increase the number of components?
Multiply by two? By twenty?
The sky’s the limit?
What reduction, no matter how extreme, could represent the USP
more forcefully?:
What can it do without?
Make it more compact?
Smaller? Shorter? Flatter?
More aerodynamic? Lighter?
Can the parts be shown separately?

6) Turn it right around

How can the benefit be depicted by inventing something familiar
into its opposite?
Convert the benefit into a disadvantage?
Show the negative instead of the positive?
Achieve the opposite of the USP?
Turn it upside down? Reverse roles?
Change the perspective of the people involved?
Switch cause and effect?
7) Omission and suggestion
What could replace the product? Who or what could take its place
in order to focus on the USP?
How can attention be attracted by omissions in headlines, copy,
spoken dialogue or TV spots?
What can be reduced or removed to emphasise the benefit?
How can the product be reduced to its essentials?
How can the product, packaging or benefit be represented, or
replaced, by suggestion?

8) Paradoxes and optical illusions

How can a paradoxical or contradictory statement emphasise the
benefit of a product or service?
How could an optical illusion represent a product features visu-
ally?
How can an optical illusion attract attention by making the target
group play a game?

9) Provocation and shock tactics

How can the product or its benefit be depicted provocatively?
What has no one else ever associated with this product?
What would no one dare to say about the product?
Can you break a taboo, or provoke the target market by other
means, to draw attention to the product message?
How can use a provocative allusion or double meaning to make the
target group think?
How could the product be depicted to have an especially horrifying
or funny effect?
How could it be made to scandalise or provoke?
How could shock be used to dramatise the product benefit?
10) Playing with time
What effect does time have on the product or user?
How will the product change the user’s future?
What possibilities does it open up? How will it affect the user now
views the past?
How might the user have had to solve problems previously without
the product?
Where does the new product take the user?
What can be used from anywhere in history to throw positive light
on the USP?
How can the product be associated with historical events in a way
that emphasises its benefit?
What vision of the future or futuristic image can help to make a
product feature visible at a glance?

11) A change of perspective

How can the product be presented from the viewpoint of other
creatures, things or events associated with it?
How can playing with extreme closeup or extreme distance com-
municate something about the product or service?
How can the benefit be presented from the viewpoint of things or
creatures affected by it?

12) Spoofs and parodies

What opportunities for spoofing or parody does the product offer?
Spoofs
What legends, stories, fairy tales, movie plots, other ads, TV shows
etc can be spoofed by changes of time, place and tone, to put across
an idea?
Parodies
What stereotypes, clichés or behaviour patterns can be parodied in
connection with the product?
13) Symbols and signs
How can the product benefit be represented more simply by
symbols or signs?
How can symbols and signs convey a complete message without
words?
Are there any signs or symbols which will communicate a message
without words?
Are there signs or symbols which will communicate a message if
inverted or altered?
What symbols and signs can be combined to generate a new
meaning, representing the product advantage?
What sign language can be used to convey the product message
without words?

14) Come and play

What kind of games can you use to get your target group
involved: riddles, DIY instructions, something to make (fold/roll/
glue together/look for/draw); quizzes, board games, optical illu-
sions, party games, anything else you can think of?
What could you do to the medium (press, poster, direct mail,
banner etc.) to turn it into a toy?
What witty, provocative or intriguing instructions could you use
to get your target group to play?

15) Telling stories

What everyday situations could you develop around the product
to show its advantages in the best light? What sort of story could
involve the product as best friend or partner? In what everyday
situation could it attract attention in a provocative way? In what
situation could it become a star, a lifesaver or a helper? In what
everyday story could it make people laugh?
Which of the following dramatic styles would be beset for present-
ing the product strength in an everyday situation or story?
Horror Thriller Adventure Slapstick
Comedy Action Costume Love story
Drama Soap opera News Documentary
Chat show
16) Absurd, surreal, bizarre
What is the most surreal or absurd idea that would put the brand
or benefit centre-stage?
What absurd or bizarre ideas can the product be associated with?
What is the most bizarre use for the product?
What stylistic conventions can you use to spin the most absurd
story possible around the product?
What is the best way to represent the benefit within a surreal or
fantastic situation?

17) Take it literally

What images do you get if you take descriptions of the product
benefit literally?
What ideas or statements about the product can be taken literally
in order to generate witty, satirical or flippant visual images?
What idioms or verbal metaphors can be taken literally?
How can slogans, common expressions, keywords, or text associ-
ated with the product be converted literally into pictures?
What slang phrases, metaphors or turns of phrase could be trans-
lated literally into a visual image that will get the product or
service noticed?
Are there any names, acronyms, slogans or other verbal concepts
that can have a double meaning if taken literally?
18) Alter the product
How could the product be depicted differently to best communicate
its benefit?:
Change its shape
Change its use?
Change its location?
Combine it with things from nature or technology?
Alter the way it looks, moves, sounds, smells?
Can you change anything else?
How could the product be altered to communicate the benefit at a
metaphorical level?
How could the product be altered to communicate one particular
feature by overstatement?

19) Alternative uses

Where else could the product be used so as to communicate its USP
clearly?
Can you imagine ways in which the product can be used in new
and different context?:
By other people or target groups?
In unexpected situations?
In a different environment?
How could the product itself represent its benefit or the problem
situation?
What unorthodox ways of using the product would give a striking
demonstration of its USP?
20) Double meanings
What opportunities for ambiguity, double meanings or wordplay
are there in the words you use to describe the benefit?
How can the benefit be illustrated in a picture with a double
meaning?
What verbal ambiguities emerge from the brief, in slogans or
taglines, product descriptions, or from discussion in meetings?
Describe the product, without naming it, in such a way as to
produce double meanings of the following types:
Obscene
Provocative
Sexually suggestive
Playful
Reckless
Paradoxical
Witty
Attacking (the rival product)

21) Play with words

How can you play with the typography to represent the USP in an
effective visual image?
How can words, symbols or logos be integrated into the picture
without using the usual typographic techniques?
How can the central advertising message be reinforced by altering
the typography?
How can words be integrated into the picture in an unusual way,
attracting attention and underlining the central advertising state-
ment?

22) In the beginning was the word

With the following KickStart questions, get help from reference
books: dictionaries of quotations, popular idioms, sayings, prov-
erbs or graffiti.
What sayings or proverbs does the product or its USP make you
think of?
What sayings might other people think of: your grandparents,
politicians, housewives, etc?
Can you make these sayings or proverbs seem unfamiliar, or take
on a new meaning that involves the USP? Eg Where there’s a will,
I’m away.
What quotations does the product suggest to you?
What quotations from other areas: politics, art, everyday life, the
media? What quotations from current celebrities might be bor-
rowed?
Can you think of any appropriate graffiti? Are there any famous
passages of dialogue from films, plays or novels, or well-known
running gags from TV series that you could use?
Everyday language
Listen to how people talk: what common jargon, dialect or slang
phrases would describe the product perfectly? How would the ordi-
nary man in the street describe the USP? Or someone cool? What
slang does it suggest to you? Run through the following exam-
ples:
An old lady
A lawyer
A child
One of the target group, etc.
Taglines
What tagline can you develop around your goal or the product?
Formulate the tagline like a book title and try to derive ideas from
it. Sample ‘titles’ could include:
The Art of Travel
100 Ways to Build a House
The Shortest Route to Money
Wordplay
Can you construct rhymes, puns or other kinds of wordplay from
the product or brand, which will underline the USP? Collect terms
relating to the product or its benefit and try them out as answers
to the following questions:
What sounds like the terms that describe the product? Can word-
play, puns, rhymes, or other verbal jokes be developed from them?
Can they be combined or rhymed with words from foreign lan-
guages?
What contradictions do descriptions of the product provoke? What
images occur to you if you think about oxymorons like ‘eloquent
silence’, ‘bittersweet’?
Can compound terms be split up and used in meaningful new com-
binations with other product descriptions?
Can these compound terms be reversed? For example, ‘heartsweet’
from ‘sweetheart’?
Give the product a nickname, or find a pet name for it. Spell the
name wrong! Invent a word for the USP.
23) Reframing
How can you alter the frame or context from within which events
are seen, and so change their meaning?
Is there a larger or different frame or context within which the
product will acquire a new and positive value?
Is there a context in which seemingly negative aspects acquire a
positive meaning?
Is there another context within which the product would be star-
tling or surprising?
Can you attach a new label with positive overtones to forms of
behaviour, events or objects, in order to reveal new and interesting
perspectives?

24) Metaphor and analogy

What metaphors or analogies can be found in nature or technology
that will represent the brand or benefit at a glance: the brand is
like X?
What can the product or USP be compared with?
What looks like it or works on a similar principle?
What parallels can be drawn?
What visual images do these metaphors and analogies suggest?
What other ideas does the product suggest?
What could you take as a model?
How can you represent a new product by comparing it with some-
thing familiar, so that the benefit is immediately obvious?
How can metaphor or analogy present a problem situation so that
it can be seen at a glance and needs no explanation?
25) Break out of the frame
How can the advertising medium be actively involved in the
message in order to make the benefit immediately apparent?
How can the context of the medium be integrated into the message
in a meaningful way?
How can standard media be altered to give the benefit more
impact?
How can the medium be involved in the message in a playful and
intelligent way?

26) Alternative Media

How could an outsize installation be used to tell a story about a
product in the open air or in a large space?
How can an outdoor site be used in a fun way to attract and
involve the attention of passers-by?
How can an advertising message be integrated into an everyday
location in an attention-grabbing way?
What everyday objects could be used for advertising, to pit the
message across in an amusing or original way?
What unconventional ad formats could be used to grab your target
group’s attention?
What familiar places or objects can you use for your ad to attract
attention in a provocative way?