Our Practice for Generating New Ideas

At Chroma, our client workflow is already systematized. This means that a lot of our daily work with clients and processes for how we work with them are completed based on standard operating procedures we’ve developed through the years. Now, this may seem uninspiring or not very groundbreaking, but in fact, working through projects in pre-planned phases leaves a good bit of room for dreaming up new and innovative ways to help our clients achieve their goals.

To stay relevant, brands must be constantly generating new and exciting ideas and experiences, and we love helping them do just that. So, here’s our strategy for generating new ideas while working on projects.

We start with what has already been done. 

During our initial brainstorming session for the project, we typically like to do sort of an audit of what the client has done in the past. We ask about previous activations, experiences, campaigns, and the like to see what has worked in the past, and then we try to do more of that. Remixing past brand activations and experiences can provide a community of customers with a familiar yet fresh understanding of the brand. While this works well for repeated experiences like events and other touch-points, it can also work well for digital marketing campaigns and ongoing work with customers.

Another method for creating new ideas is to examine what was done in another time and bring those practices back by adding a modern or culturally relevant take on the concept. We are not sure when it happened, but somehow this has become a very innovative way to create new ideas and concepts.

Think future-forward.

The best thing about being creative is the freedom to ponder what could be. So, in our initial discovery phase, we will ask some pointed questions: What currently does not exist in this space? What problems are yet to be solved?

Asking these questions and allowing the mind to cultivate the seeds of possibility is a great way to create new ideas. Often this is the hardest to achieve because our human minds draw inspiration from the existing world around us. These “new ideas” will typically grow from some combination of existing references. So, the amalgamation of many things becomes a new thing that sets our clients on a path to offering something new.

If it ain’t broke, tweak it a little. 

The ultimate hack for creating something fresh is simply to make an existing idea better. While looking at previous strategies, if we find what appears to us as holes, we will look at what is missing and work toward developing what can be improved upon.

Refreshing and reviving aged ideas by perfecting them can take a generally decent concept and elevate it.

Now that you know how we do what we do, we’d love to hear more about how your team generates new ideas. Share in the comments below.