Ideas are out there, Where are you?

The week long stay at Cannes to cover the ad festival offered me a great chance to interact with CMOs. And one common thread that came out is the emphasis on innovation to fuel growth. But innovation or acquiring innovative ideas cannot be done in the traditional manner. Sure, brands have their internal resources to initiate innovation and of course partners such as agencies are expected to come out with innovative ideas as far as communication or marketing is concerned. But increasingly, brands are now adopting an open source environment when it comes to ideas that lead to innovation. Be it Procter's connect+develop or Unilever attempt with ideas from end users called crowdsourcing that shows that ideas can now come out of anywhere. Now one may argue that it is great to ideate but a different cup of tea when it comes to execution and that's where partners like agencies and their expertise come to fore. But the question is what stops agencies from creating an apparatus or a process that allows them to capture the ideas and convert them into viable innovation for brands? In the new age of agency-brand relationship, what can be a better value add to brands if agencies are themselves at the fore front of presenting innovation to its clients. And innovation need not be a commercial or a 30 seconder. It can be a media agnostic idea that rides both offline and online mediums with equal ease. Clients are putting a premium on ideas that transcend the normal boundaries of communications, but are agencies taking cognisance of that and re-drawing their structure to meet such a requirement?

Ideas are out there, where are you?

The week long stay at Cannes to cover the ad festival offered me a great chance to interact with CMOs. And one common thread that came out is the emphasis on innovation to fuel growth. But innovation or acquiring innovative ideas cannot be done in the traditional manner. Sure, brands have their internal resources to initiate innovation and of course partners such as agencies are expected to come out with innovative ideas as far as communication or marketing is concerned. But increasingly, brands are now adopting an open source environment when it comes to ideas that lead to innovation. Be it Procter's connect+develop or Unilever attempt with ideas from end users called crowdsourcing that shows that ideas can now come out of anywhere. Now one may argue that it is great to ideate but a different cup of tea when it comes to execution and that's where partners like agencies and their expertise come to fore. But the question is what stops agencies from creating an apparatus or a process that allows them to capture the ideas and convert them into viable innovation for brands? In the new age of agency-brand relationship, what can be a better value add to brands if agencies are themselves at the fore front of presenting innovation to its clients. And innovation need not be a commercial or a 30 seconder. It can be a media agnostic idea that rides both offline and online mediums with equal ease. Clients are putting a premium on ideas that transcend the normal boundaries of communications, but are agencies taking cognisance of that and re-drawing their structure to meet such a requirement?