A Technique for Producing Ideas
James Webb Young is the Sun Tzu of ideas. And in his 1960s book A Technique for Producing Ideas he set out what he saw as a strong process for advertising creatives to follow when trying to think up campaigns in that burgeoning industry.
“The production of ideas is just as definite a process as the production of Fords,” was Webb Young’s view.
He stated that there were general principles that underpinned the production of ideas, and that these included the notion that ideas are, more or less, “a new combination of old elements”. This is not dissimilar to a comedian’s thought process (Foster suggests we study comedians if we are struggling to think like children) and, like the comic, the key need is the ability to ...
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