Don The Idea Guy
Ideas that mean business... and MORE business!
  • Home
  • Brainstorming
  • Speaking
  • About DTIG
    • Interviews
  • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Disclosures and Disclaimers
  • Get Free Ideas
explore a theme

Exploring A Theme

Don The Idea Guy

When I latch on to an idea, I grip it with both hands and shake it by the lapels. If the concept doesn’t fall apart, I begin an exhaustive effort to explore a theme. For me this consists of finding the funny bits and seeing how far I can take them.

Though many people say they don’t enjoy puns, I think puns are a sign of intellectual dexterity and verbal acrobatics. I’ve taken deep dives into many different themes by starting with humor and seeing how far I could ride it.

I once had to design a marketing brochure with a Las Vegas theme.
I chose a deck of cards to be on the initial invitation to illustrate the idea that this company had “the winning hand”. For the next hour I rattled off as many humorous puns and jokes as a I could.

  • Let the chips fall where they may
  • What a great deal
  • Come visit our full house
  • We’re playing it straight
  • We’re all flush with excitement
  • We have a great event on deck

And many more…
My co-workers were laughing along with me, but my boss… well, he would have preferred if I’d simply kept silent and worked faster on completing the brochure design.

The time I spent free-flowing alternate ideas for the concept were not wasted minutes. The ideas were something we could pitch to the print customer and tell them we’d been thinking about their project and had come up with a few ideas for them to review.

My extra time punning ended up realizing additional revenues for the company because while some may find puns annoying, they were also a creative way to describe additional ideas through the use of metaphor.

The client “got” the mental picture and was able to clearly understand the additional ideas we were suggesting and bought into the concept — increasing their spending with us in order to make a bigger impact with their audience and raise awareness (and ticket sales!) to their event.

The next time you’re worried about going too far with a project theme, consider that you may not have gone far enough.

 

 

Care to share?

  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
The All-Nighter Confirm Customer Cancellations

Related Posts

jason-polan-giraffes

Inspiration

The Prolific Jason Polan

Earlier this year I ran across the news that artist Jason Polan had passed away back in 2020 at the age of 37 having succumbed to cancer and I wanted to post a few words about how he inspired me with the prolific amount of creative work and ideas he shared with the world. If […]

Care to share?

  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
lion tapestry

Insight, Inspiration

The Ugly Back

Everyone goes to the museum to admire the pretty fronts of artistic tapestries, but the ugly backs face the wall and are rarely on display. My wife decided she wanted to host a big family Thanksgiving this year. While we were in the process of cleaning up the house and putting our (my) clutter. Hapy […]

Care to share?

  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
awaken broadcast campaign

Insight, Inspiration

My Three Words for 2022

Several years ago I started choosing an annual trio of words to help me stay on track with my goals, focus my actions, and guide my decision making. I copied the practice from Chris Brogan and you can click on that link in his name to visit Chris’ page to read about how he chooses […]

Care to share?

  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)


What kinds of ideas are you looking for?

Better Questions = Better Ideas

BUY 100-Whats of Creativity

Cool Stuff For You

booklikeaboss
free podcast websites

Recent Articles

  • Alternative business ideas for Job Board sites
  • 2025 is the Year of Whensdays!
  • Hot Projects from Cool Friends
  • Increase Your Idea To Action Velocity
  • The Prolific Jason Polan

Categories

  • Action
  • Featured
  • Ideas
  • Innovation
  • Insight
  • Inspiration
  • Rant
  • ThinkLinks
  • Uncategorized

Archives

Tags

action advertising attitude book brainstorming business creativity curiosity customer customer loyalty customers DTIG gitomer goals Ideas Innovation Insight Inspiration kickstart leadership links loyalty marketing media money motivation networking persuasion podcast productivity products projects Rant revenue sales selling service social media speaking success trends web work writing zombies

Idea Guy Projects

  • Big Yellow Sticky
  • Find Your Fries
  • SalesToys
  • Stop Selling At Me!
  • Super Action League

Let’s Connect

Another unusually creative project from Don The Idea Guy
© 2024 - All rights reserved. Do not use content without permission.