…or how copywriters come up with original ideas, aka ideation.

As copywriters, we often find ourselves trading in themes, ideas and big messages. ‘Coming up with an idea’ (or ‘ideation’ which is a word that makes me recoil for some reason) sounds so easy. But when you’re in the thick of it, suddenly the pressure feels acute, and it seems like the creativity you KNOW you have has never been further out of reach.

Every now and again, the big, brilliant idea hits you in the face without you even breaking a sweat. Not often, though, and certainly not often enough to rely on it happening. The reality is that, if you want to come up with great ideas, you’re just gonna have to roll your sleeves up and graft.

As Elizabeth Gilbert says in her excellent book Big Magic, society is led to believe that creatives are all tortured souls who effortlessly stumble across original ideas through a combination of unique genius and substance abuse. But the truth is that, when you’re creating anything – be it a song, a painting, a poem, or the copy for an advertising campaign – the old adage of art being 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration has never been more true (I know the right word here is ‘truer’, but I hate that word, too).

I recently wrote a post on LinkedIn to reflect on some of the things I do to break through roadblocks and get the ideas flowing. Lots of fellow creatives then weighed in with their own tips and tricks for hitting on a big idea when the pressure is on and a deadline is looming.

Their comments were so helpful that I’m rounding it all up here for the next time I’m faced with a creative brief and my brain’s not playing ball. I hope that it may help you get those elusive yet brilliant ideas flowing, too.

So, in no particular order, here are some of my tactics, processes, practical tools, resources and tips for coming up with ideas.

• Know yourself, and your best creative time. For me, it’s from 8-11am in the morning. When I’m on a deadline I make sure the dog is walked and the caffeine levels are bang on before 8am.
  
• Write a summary of the brief to boil it down to its essence (and get it approved). The shorter, the better.

• Review all resources, using a highlighter to extract the gold.
  
• Review all the competition, and see what’s been done before. I want what I come up with to be noticeably different (and there’s nothing more galling than being ready to submit your idea and discovering that someone’s already done it).
  
• Plunder the greats for inspo. I regularly revisit the evergreen ‘The Copy Book’ and Sir John Hegarty’s ‘Hegarty on Advertising‘ for this sort of work. And I often go down a George Tannenbaum-shaped rabbit hole. Marketing Examples can also help get the ideas flowing.
  
• Go for a walk. (Getting a dog was the best thing I’ve ever done for my creativity – she makes me walk even when I don’t want to).
  
• Dive into industry-specific thought leadership, insights, trends.
  
• Write a long list of associated words and phrases and try to turn each into a headline.
  
• Write a long list of boring cliches, stereotypes and obvious statements that I commit to the bin before they creep in.
  
• Delve into the dictionary, a thesaurus, rhyming dictionaries, relevant word websites.
  
• Write a list of antonyms to reverse my thinking.
  
• Get away from the screen and brainstorm on paper. A mind map is an oldie but still a goodie.
  
• Mock up words in Canva to see ideas in context.
  
• Sleep on it. Shut all the tabs open on my screen and in my head, and start again with a fresh brain.

…and some brilliant ideation techniques from fellow creatives:

• Beth Vincent mentioned showers – how did I forget to include showers in my list?! Putting yourself in a place where you can’t write anything down, and there isn’t a screen in sight, is brilliant for getting the ideas flowing. Driving is also good. Beth also likes to talk things through with her cat.
  
  
• Tom Hadley suggested ‘cultural self-prep’ which is an idea I absolutely LOVE. He says, “When I’m doing this stuff I’ll often spend time using music, spoken audio, or video of something (often something quite random) to try and shape my mood and create a vibe to work in. How you do that is very personal, but one of my favourite parts of the creative process.”
  
  
• Gill Perkins is a fan of swimming, and talking to her chickens. She also said, “And lots of books on shelves. And a whiteboard, and a mind map, and random word lists. And chatting it through with other people. And going back to the client with lots of questions. Stupid basic questions.”
  
  
• Lia Aprile said, “For me, the walking away is always huge. One other thing I always do (hello, theatre background) is talk it out, aloud. Especially if it’s complex. I know if I can explain it simply, in words, out loud, I understand it. I also always let myself do one ridiculous pass: rhyming ideas, dumb jokes, the thing I think will get me laughed out of the room.”
  
  
• Helen Gent came in with my favourite suggestion so far… a power nap. She said, “I usually factor in a power nap. I wake up with my mind brimming with new ideas. Sometimes”. Power nap FTW.
  
  
• Jen Larkin rounds things off beautifully with a statement that is so true. “You really do have to put in the effort to build and fuel a creativity engine. Once that’s running, inspiration comes from the spaces in between.”
  
  

So there we have it – lots of copywriting ideation hacks for when you’re being tormented by the blank page. I’m sure there are more – what are your go-tos? Let me know and I’ll add them.

One final reflection is that I can’t see how AI copy could EVER replicate the process of coming up with genuinely unique, creative ideas, because it is so human and messy and beautiful.

And that’s why we love it.

Olivia Dunn runs Profound Copywriting – brand copywriting for better, simpler words.