Now,now!

Having ideas is easy. Having ideas at the right time when people are ready and receptive to them,that is an art. Or plain dumb luck. Jean-Jaques Rousseau and his `men born free are everywhere in chains' idea happened at the right time.Thomas Paine happened to have his social contract idea at the right time. Me with the idea of having a puppet camel run into a brick wall for a cigarette brand back in the day when I was a writer hanging on by my fingernails -ok I may be mixing in the wrong company with that example but you get my drift. How many times have you had an idea rejected or worse still scoffed at for its utter lameness only to see that idea a year or two later being lauded for its originality. Ideas seem to trend in cycles. Stuff I saw years ago and did myself years ago I see happening again and again,different products,different casting,same old shit. I saw something recently that brought this to mind. It was an idea for a brand who shall be nameless but involved a guy overhearing a conversation between a group of attractive women and he is fooled into thinking they are talking about him and his attributes only to find they were talking about the new packaging of said brand. When I was a group creative director one of my jobs was to act as advertising historian so when an idea like this was presented I could say it's been done,and done,and done,and done. So do something new. And there are new ideas to be had. The best ones are always the one's we're not ready for.