If you are in advertising you will have heard some variation on this theme at least once today: the media landscape is changing, traditional advertising is dying, print is probably already dead. (I’m not buying arguments to the contrary. When was the last time you saw a great print campaign that wasn’t a scam?)

Now here’s the flipside: The Big Idea is evolving into something that’s an exciting new beast. And like all evolution, it’s meant to adapt to the changing environment. So, now the Big Idea needs to be fitter, stronger, more relevant contextually (to be able to adapt to many different media jungles). The idea needs to be a cultural juggernaut; it needs to become a meme.

I am a true blue copywriter who still thrills at the sight of a well written headline. But when I'm getting briefed by a client, I no longer think automatically in terms of headline + visual. Where once I was trained to generate ideas that brought out the product/brand message through words and pictures, now ideas are much more intangible.

So what’s my point? There are 3:

1.  I’m not so blinded by digital that I think every product must be sold through a “conversation”, but like all arguments, the digital vs traditional divide isn’t all black and white. While conversations may not happen around a detergent, no one can deny that there has been a huge change in how consumers of any media react to that media. People expect to be able to comment on, share, edit and carry with them, the media they consume. No brand can really compete in this market by taking up a mega phone and simply blaring out its message. I’d say the brand needs to tell a story that the consumer can finish in his own head. And that changes the very idea of the typical “advertising idea”. A clever headline + visual, or its film equivalent only takes the brand so far.

2.  The idea’s ownership is changing. This is not to be compared with the Brand’s ownership, which is still held by the Brand Custodian (there’s a rant there, but I’ll leave it for another day). Some of the best marketing ideas in the last few months have left me wondering, who thought of that? And this makes clients nervous, they don’t know if they should invest deeply in an idea that hasn’t come through the proper thought channel. What if it doesn’t work? And what if it does? Who will scale it to cover other media?

3.  The above is just one reason why, ideas are getting harder to sell. The other reason is, clients find it easy to see and react to a headline/visual or even a film storyboard. Not so easy to react to a wireframe or sometimes just a concept note. Things like brand voice don't always come through in a concept note unless the client is also steeped in the vocabulary and dynamics of the interactive space.

Agencies that are building capabilities to ideate on their brands, completely free from media and format restrictions, are probably the agencies of the future. Because everything else can be bought – great execution (whether film or web), design, analytics, media. The Idea, on the other hand, has to be cracked.