If You Don’t Know ‘What’s Possible’ You’re Limiting or Killing Creative

Sometimes you see an idea and think, “I wish I’d thought of that”. Other times you see an idea and think, “why didn’t X brand think of that?”.  Then, there are times you see an idea and think, “I didn’t even know that was possible”.  These are the important ones. The reason to make the time to keep up in this game.

This week, like many, I read about drunkdialcongress.com – a site that prompts you to “call and yell at a random member of congress” to voice your frustrations about the government shutdown.

I checked it out.

The creative hook was first class (wish I’d thought of that), but the mechanism that enabled you to carry out the ‘drunk call’ got me really excited – I didn’t even know it was possible.

The site asks you to enter your phone number to make the call and within seconds of doing so your phone rings and you’re connected to the member of congress.

As marketers, we’re in the business of getting people to change their behavior. Getting people to take out their phone and make a call to their government representative is a big ask. In fact, it’s a such a big ask, if it had come up as a behavioral goal of a campaign I was working on I may have dismissed it and looked for something easier to get people to do.

Now I wouldn’t.

Technology that enables a site to make the call for you – on your phone –  in just one click –  is a massive step towards eliminating the complexity of that task.

We’re writing the new rules of how to market in a constantly connected world. The tools and technology available to us to carry out our craft are changing everyday. If you’re not keeping up, you don’t know what’s possible. If you don’t know what’s possible, you could be limiting the effectiveness of ideas, or worse, killing off potentially great ideas.