Creativity’s job is to "cross the line"
You don't need BIG budgets to come up with BIG creative ideas.
In February 2021, a Toronto burger restaurant called Good Fortune Burger came up with a BIG idea.
Good Fortune Burger announced via Instagram:
"We’re relabeling our menu items as office supplies so you can expense food to work."
Good Fortune Burger called this campaign "#RECEATS", and asked customers to “Expense this. Eat this.”
Soon, some folks started tweeting about it.
And then the Toronto Sun, National Post and other Canadian news outlets picked up the story.
A bunch of other popular websites from all over the World also picked up the story. Including Trend Hunter, BroBible, and many more.
The FREE press coverage Good Fortune Burger got is invaluable.
Because thanks to all this press coverage, Good Fortune Burger earned high quality backlinks.
And this means that Google, Yahoo and other search engines will reward them with better search results.
But the truth is, getting the kind of press coverage Good Fortune Burger got isn't easy.
To be blunt, for 3 reasons:
Journalists are busy.
It's super hard to get their attention (unless you have something interesting to say).
Most brands are boring and don't have interesting stories to tell. OR if they do, they don't know how to tell stories.
So how did Good Fortune Burger earn all this free press coverage? Because of a little trick.
They linked two unrelated ideas: Burgers + Office supplies as business expenses.
And then came up with a newsworthy story.
Some folks tweeted that this #RECEATS" campaign "clearly crosses the line".
But they don't get what creativity is.
Creativity’s job is to "cross the line". You're supposed to question and challenge the rules. Because that's how you get more publicity.
That's how creativity drives change and creates a better tomorrow.
Takeaways for your business:
1. A good trick to earn FREE press is to learn how to think in newspaper headlines. That’s the trick: Always try to imagine your BIG idea as a newspaper headline.
2. To come up with a BIG idea don't start with the product; start with a tension (within a cultural truth). Then connect the dots to your product, and think in newspaper headlines.
A Chicken burger is a product.
A tension within a cultural truth is: “Sometimes your employees can get really creative deducting business expenses".
The newspaper headline is: "Toronto Burger restaurant renames menu items as office supplies so you can expense your meal".
3. If you’re having a hard time coming up with a BIG idea, this 3-Step process from ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky is also a good place to start:
Your pal,
🚀 Founder & Chief Copywriter: teardwn.com
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