Enough with the "Integrated" Big Idea

This one's been languishing, so I'm just going to post it in phases.

I've had it with the obsession in the advertising and marketing world with the "Integrated Big Idea". This barely worked when all that agencies produced was TV and/or Radio and a bit of Print. It is completely irrelevant in the land of fragmented media, prosumers and multiplatform browsing. The idea that a single idea will work in all platforms for all consumers not only demeans the user/consumer's intelligence but assumes that the agency is capable of omniscience.

Any decent idea idea may be great for one platform. It may even be great for several -- an idea based around entertaining the potential consumer can work in TV, online, long form, etc... but it will likely require a diverse group of creative people for creation -- I've met very very very few writers that are good at multiple lengths of storytelling. Most of the ones out there are very busy.

Why does the industry insist on forcing ideas to cover multiple platforms? To paraphrase Benjamin Palmer's quote in an Adweek article "you have a different brand when talking to your grandma than when with your girlfriend, why shouldn't a company?" Different people consume different media and have different expectations from their consumption, so why do agencies insist on trying to come up with ideas that cover many types of media? Oh yeah, because we've made a big deal out of the idea of "Integrated".

Let's get over it. Integrated should be about opening lines of communication across all platforms, and being consistent with your offering in those platforms. I would expect a company to talk to me differently than they talk to a 15 year old or a 50 year old. BUT I would expect them to be true to the consistency of their offering and the discussion there of. Don't tell me one thing and someone else something contradictory, because we'll find out and likely both be pissed off. But if you produce a piece of entertainment that doesn't appeal to me, that doesn't mean it will necessarily turn me off, I'll just ignore it. So don't try and make the idea that works for the 15 year old work for me, invite more creatives and come up with something else. Then do them both.