THERE'S NOTHING LIKE A GOOD BIT.

"I laugh twice every time someone shows me the pro-athlete-dressed-as-an-old-person bit. First, because it's a great bit, and again because the person showing it to me doesn't ever seem to realize it's an endlessly recycled bit. The thing is, it doesn't matter. It still works."Hacking Advertising, page 99

The Uncle Drew spots for Pepsi Max were so good that people still remember them more than ten years later. Strategically they were a perfect fit: Pepsi Max "tastes just like Pepsi" but with no sugar, and here's a kid who plays just like a pro but looks seventy.

So if everything is derivative, don't fight it. Go with it. If your client sells soap, start by writing down every soap ad you can remember and the bit each one used. Then the brainstorm is just riffing: it's like the Irish Spring ad, but it's this. It's like the Dove ad, but it's this.

It's a faster, more productive way to get to useful ideas. The creativity is in the spin you add to the bit, not in pretending nobody ever made an ad before. That's how we do it at Wild Gravity, and it's how the Steal-Like-an-Artist Rapid Concepting Method gets a room of business owners from zero to three usable concepts in an hour.