A Tiny Way to Make a Big Point
Tuesday, April 14, 2009 at 1:51PM 
IN MY “THINK INSIDE THE BOX” creativity training sessions I frequently talk about a variety of techniques for posing questions that generate focused but productive brainstorms. One of these techniques is “Dramatize and Showcase.” Most of the time this approach leads to ideas that depend on increasing the physical size of something, producing a broad sweep of activity, highlighting scope and details or otherwise amplifying whatever the issue or product in question is.
Recently, though, I was reminded of how effective reducing the scale of something can be in dramatizing it.
I was participating in the annual meeting of the United States Potato Board (one of my clients). Among the many discussions of marketing plans, research, nutrition information and the like was a presentation that encouraged potato grower/shippers to include the recently developed “Potatoes. Goodness Unearthed” graphic on potato bags and other packaging. Now, as anyone who has ever worked with package design will tell you, this is precious real estate and adding new content requires considerable discussion and consideration. The most common objection is “there’s not enough room” for the additional words, or pictures or graphics, or what have you.
So, to dramatize the point that there’s no package so small that the new signature couldn’t be included, the Potato Board folks brought in the tiny guns: They printed the graphic on M&M’s and handed out bags of the surprisingly readable mini-billboards to all of the attendees.
Sweet! The M&M’s were a great idea, and a persuasive technique. They made the point better than any amount of cajoling and conversation could.
Simple, direct, powerful … and tiny.
How have you seen “small” work “big”? Leave a comment here.
© 2009 John Armato
Reader Comments (2)
Getting us inside the box thinking small ideas. I love it John. Keep em coming!
Thanks Christian! glad you liked it.