A Model To Create Good Ideas

A good idea = desirable + believable + distinctive.

Desirable Ideas come from Human Insight

Desirable ideas are frequently grounded in deep human insight. Many of our clients are drowning in extensive data, yet this often lacks the emotional depth that should be found in a good human insight. As a result, new ideas generated with data, can lack critical user appeal. We use qualitative, projective techniques to complement data, to get to the ‘why’, which then uncovers unobvious, emotional and functional needs, and guides new product development.

Believable ideas come from Technical Understanding

Technical and commercial teams are frequently silo’d in large organisations, and often appear to be speaking different languages. We believe that technical teams generally bring ‘what’s possible’ and commercial teams tend to know ‘what’s needed’. When these capabilities are combined, and well-understood products are presented to users, they are frequently more believable and meaningful than concepts that are perceived as ‘marketing speak’ only.

Distinctive ideas come from Future Foresight

A typical brief for Untapped requires the development of new products that are 3+ years away. As a result, we need to ensure that we have one eye on user needs today, and another on predictive trends. We collaborate with a range of semioticians such as @DavidPanos and @LauraBoerboom who acutely observe consumer culture and then map new trajectories of change. We seek social listening insight from @Rosie and @Siobhan to map ‘new buzz’ conversations amongst lead users in a category or sector. And we collaborate with AI Trend Scanning experts like @Preriit to quantitatively diagnose trajectories of change. By combining diverse selections of predictive data and insight, we can feel confident that ideas will not only be appealing, but also new and different.