How to Play Sloganeeze
By Peter LloydGiven: Random stimulation sparks unique creative ideas. Given: Unique ideas produce more new-to-the-world products, inventions, and innovations. Question: Where do I find and how do I use random stimulation? Glib answer: Anywhere! Serious answer: Just about anywhere.
In an interview, the great new-product ideation wonk Doug Hall of Eureka Ranch recommended going to the Sears catalog for random stimulation. That was a while ago, before everything in print moved online. But the point remains—ideas from “out there” force ideators into unexplored territory. Where the really new ideas hide.
Clearly explored territory holds a wealth of new ideas, too, if only because people who have explored it before you might not have found them. They may be less creative, not quite as open to new ideas, or unable or unwilling to explore as well as you might. But don’t count on it. Use random stimulation to get “out there.” Start with the Creativity Toolbox. It contains a bunch of easy-to-use apps that generate random stimuli.
Consider Sloganeeze. It generates the world’s best advertising slogans, one at a time, in no particular order. Simply apply the slogan to your problem.
Some folks have trouble applying random stimulation to a specific problem, so allow me to demonstrate how the process works with an example.
Example
I came to Sloganeeze with the problem of how to draw more lunch customers to Andy’s, a restaurant. Like its downtown competitors, Andy’s offered lunch specials, but it catered to folks with an appreciation for the eccentric. My ideas had to be off the wall. Perfect for random stimulation.
Eventually Sloganeeze generated “Shout it out.” An association hit me like lightning. Our town, like most, featured street-corner preachers. Why not dress up an actor, give him some menus, and have him shout like a preacher the benefits of eating at Andy’s? Prepped with a long list of Bible phrases re-interpreted to sell sandwiches, our barker hit the street corners.
“Man does not live by bread alone,” he hollered, “You need bacon, ham, pickles, and mayonnaise on toasted bread...”
To make Sloganeeze or any kind of random stimulation work, you have to allow yourself to free associate, to make instant analogies. From “shout” to “corner preacher” to converting Scripture to advertising.
To understand how this works, you might want to read “This Is Your Brain on Metaphors.” But you don’t have to understand. Your brain makes associations without conscious effort. The trick is to let it and then to pay attention.
Follow up: Andy’s preacher campaign was a total bust. No, the preacher did not get struck by lightning. A policeman informed him that it was illegal to advertise in this way in a public space.
Peter Lloyd is co-creator with Stephen Grossman of Animal Crackers, the breakthrough problem-solving tool designed to crack your toughest problems.