Advertising creativity values originality above all. Firsts have long been considered its highest expression.

In less than two months, we’ve already been through lots of iteration.

But that’s so last millennium. One of the best aspects of digital development is its embrace of fast iteration; whether that means improving your own idea or someone else’s. Fast-following is not copying; it’s adapting and learning in real time.

Back in the mid-90’s we all used the AltaVista search engine. Two years later, Larry and Sergei introduced their own search engine, which added popularity ranking based on backlinks. Now the platform they iterated is so omnipresent it’s become a verb.

We believe today’s creative agencies must make a practice of fast-following and fast-adapting. As choices for platforms and technology-enabled executions expand at exponential rates, we must keep learning and reviewing, simply to keep pace with what’s possible, what’s been tried, and how it’s worked. We need to be heat-seekers, because that helps our clients engage with relevant immediacy. And makes our ideas louder.

Happily, the endless waterfall of information shared on the web make this not just possible, but inspiring. So every client deck we present cites breakthrough ideas from other places and other agencies that inspire our iterations to solve the problems at hand.

Building ideas on proven foundations provides a measure of assurance when the stakes are high.

And these days, when aren’t they?

Mike & Dennis