The importance of the big idea
Written by Simon Clatworthy
I read this interesting blog post (link) on Brand Republic today and it reminded me of a couple of books that I read a long time back. Its always good to be reminded of some good classics. The first was “Good to Great”, (link) which summarised the importance of the infusion of a reason for being into every part of companies such as Sony and HP (those good ideas now seem to be lost). The other was “The Big Idea” (link) which basically said that your service will go nowhere, unless your company has a big idea, understands the importance of this, and can see how a service innovation fits in with this big idea.
This is something quite basic – if you don’t know exactly what your big idea is, then having a social media strategy is a waste of time. In other words, social media are just additional touch-points that are available to you to establish a relationship with your customers and should be treated as such. Looking at social media in isolation, and as anything other than additional touch-points is dangerous, but looking at social media without relating it to the big idea is downright foolish.
Its worthwhile relating this to the brand megaphone model that we developed in the AT-ONE project. The clue lies in the Brand DNA and a clear understanding of this. Any misunderstandings of your Brand DNA, will be amplified a thousand times when you develop a service personality and then translate this to the relevant touch-points. So, when thinking about a social media strategy, I think its worth checking and restating the brand DNA of the company, or to put it another way, reiterating your big idea. In this way you can show how the social media strategy fits with your Brand DNA and the other touchpoints you have. Then, your social media touch-points will fit with other touch-points will fit with your service personality, will fit your brand will fit with your Brand DNA and will all support THE BIG IDEA.
 ‘entering into social media never replaced having a big idea’