12.
Gather the Information
Aristotle was famous for knowing everything. He taught that the brain exists merely to cool the blood and is not involved in the process of thinking. This is true only of certain persons.
Will Cuppy
If there is another way to skin a cat, I don’t want to know about it.
Steve Kravitz
We don’t know a millionth of one percent about anything.
Thomas Edison
It was my first year in advertising. Our agency just got a new account—a meat packer. The owner wanted us to advertise his bacon. I remember my first copy chief, Bud Boyd, saying that he wanted to ask him “a few questions” before we started to work.
“What is bacon, exactly?”
“What kind of hogs?”
“Do some hogs produce better bacon than other hogs?”
“Why?”
“What kind of hogs does your competition use?”
“What are the hogs fed?”
“Why are they fed corn and whey and peanuts and slop?”
“Where do the corn and whey and peanuts and slop come from?”
“What kind of corn?”
“What kind of whey?”
“What kind of peanuts?”
“What kind of slop?”
“How much of each are they fed?”
“Why?”
“Are the hogs your competition uses fed the same things, the same way?”
“Can you find out?”
“Do the hogs you use win prizes at state fairs?”
“How many prizes?”
“Is that more prizes than the hogs your competition uses?”
“Can you find out?”
“Who are the people who raise your hogs?”
“Are they all just from that one state?”
“Why?”
“What kind of buildings do the hogs live in?”
“Is the temperature or humidity or lighting controlled?”
“How are they shipped to market?”
“How old are they when they’re shipped to market?”
“How much do they weigh when they’re shipped to market?”
“Does any of this differ from what your competitors do?”
“Is there anything about your hogs that is different from the hogs your competition uses?”
“Could you arrange for me to talk on the phone to a couple of the people who raise the hogs?”
“How is bacon made?”
“What is it cut with?”
“Why is it the thickness that it is?”
“Why is it the length that it is?”
“Why is it the width that it is?”
“What are its fat and moisture contents?”
“Why aren’t they lower?”
“Why aren’t they higher?”
“Is any of this different from your competition’s bacon?”
“When may we visit your packinghouse and talk to some of your people?”
“Why do you cure bacon?”
“What do you cure it with?”
“How long do you cure it?”
“Why do you smoke it?”
“How do you smoke it?”
“What kind of wood do you use?”
“Why?”
“How long do you smoke it?”
“Is any of this different from your competition?”
“Why is bacon packaged the way it is?”
“How can you tell if the bacon’s not fresh?”
“Why does old bacon burn twice as fast as fresh bacon?”
“What makes one kind of bacon better than another kind of bacon?”
“What is the ideal proportion of fat to meat in bacon?”
“Why?”
“What is your bacon’s proportion of fat to meat?”
“What is your competition’s?”
“Does your bacon look different from your competition’s?”
“Have you done any taste tests on your bacon?”
“Is there anything about your bacon that you’d change if you could?”
“What is the best way to cook bacon?”
“Why is frying better than broiling?”
“Why should you start with a cold frying pan?”
“Why should you turn it frequently?”
“Why should you pour off the grease?”
“My mother used to blanch bacon before she fried it. Is that a good idea?”
“Why not?”
“Do you have any books on bacon that I might read?”
All morning long and all through lunch Bud asked questions. When lunch was over the client said he had meetings to attend. Bud asked if we could come back tomorrow.
“What for?” said our new client. “I’ve told you everything I know about bacon, believe me.”
“I just wanted to ask a few questions,” said Bud, “about the people who make and package and deliver and sell the bacon. And of course about the people who buy and cook and serve and eat it.”
Obviously Bud believed in getting as much information as he could about a subject before he started to come up with ideas about it.
So do I. And so does everybody I know of who writes about getting ideas.
In advertising it’s easy to get the information. You just ask the client for it.
But you have to ask. And ask. And ask.
Another Bud—Bud Robbins, the head of an advertising agency—told this story:
“Back in the sixties, I was hired by an ad agency to write copy on the Aeolian Piano Company account. My first assignment was for an ad to be placed in the New York Times for one of their grand pianos. The only background information I received was some previous ads and a few faded close-up shots . . . and, of course, the due date.
“I volunteered I couldn’t even play a piano let alone write about why anyone would spend $5,000 for this piano when they could purchase a Baldwin or Steinway for the same amount.”
After much arguing, “. . . reluctantly a tour of the Aeolian factory in upstate New York was arranged.
“The tour lasted two days and although the care and construction appeared meticulous, $5,000 still seemed to be a lot of money.
“Just before leaving, I was escorted into the show room by the National Sales Manager. In an elegant setting sat their piano alongside the comparably priced Steinway and Baldwin.
“ ‘They sure look alike,’ I commented.
“ ‘They sure do. About the only real difference is the shipping weight—ours is heavier.’
“ ‘Heavier?’ I asked. ‘What makes ours heavier?’
“ ‘What’s a Capo d’astro bar?’
“ ‘Here, I’ll show you. Get down on your knees.’
“Once under the piano he pointed to a metallic bar fixed across the harp and bearing down on the highest octaves. ‘It takes 50 years before the harp in the piano warps. That’s when the Capo d’astro bar goes to work. It prevents that warping.’
“I left the National Sales Manager under his piano and dove under the Baldwin to find a Tinkertoy Capo d’astro bar at best. The same for the Steinway.
“ ‘You mean the Capo d’astro bar really doesn’t go to work for 50 years?’ I asked.
“ ‘Well, there’s got to be some reason why the Met uses it,’ he casually added.
“I froze. ‘Are you telling me that the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City uses this piano?’
“ ‘Sure. And their Capo d’astro bar should be working by now.’
“Upstate New York looks nothing like the front of the Metropolitan Opera House where I met the legendary Carmen, Risë Stevens. She was now in charge of moving the Met to Lincoln Center.
“Ms. Stevens told me, ‘About the only thing the Met is taking with them is their piano.’
“That quote was the headline of our first ad.
“The result created a six-year wait between order and delivery.
“My point is this. No matter what the account, I promise you, the Capo d’astro bar is there.”
In the problem you’re working on right now, there is some fact, some overlooked relationship with something else, some nugget of information, that will help you solve its mystery, that will help you unlock the door to its solution.
So if it’s not easy for you to get the information you need, don’t skip this step. It is essential.
It is the “specific knowledge” that James Webb Young talked about: specific knowledge that you need to combine with “general knowledge about life and events.”
“A creative man can’t jump from nothing to a great idea,” said Bill Bernbach, the head of an advertising agency. “He needs a springboard of information.”
Know that the nugget you’re looking for is there, and know that you will find it, just as you know that the idea it will help form exists, just as you know that you will find that idea.
Dig for it.
The easiest way is, of course, by surfing the Internet.
A dozen or so years ago, when I was writing the original version of How to Get Ideas, I spent months at the UCLA Research Library looking through books for information and quotes and ideas on ideas. In writing this second edition, I spent days (not months) at home(not at the library) Googling for additional information and ideas.
If you have not yet learned how to use search engines like Google or Yahoo or Ask, learn. Go to one of them, type in the subject you’re working on, hit “Search,” and you’re on your way.
But don’t stop there.
Read books. Read magazine articles. Read newspaper articles. Consult the encyclopedia. Become more like a child again—ask questions. Ask why. Ask why not. Visit the plant. Visit the warehouse. Talk with the workers. Talk with the suppliers. Work in the store. Ride with the salespeople. Seek out customers and talk with them. Seek out noncustomers and talk with them. Seek out your competitor’s customers and talk with them. Read your competitor’s annual report. Talk with the engineers. Talk with the designers. Work on the truck. Work in the field. Sample the product. Sample your competitor’s product. Go to lectures. Go to the library. Go to bookstores. Ask your friends. Ask your kids. Ask your mother.
But perhaps most important, put your mind on it.
It’s amazing what happens when you keep something in the forefront of your consciousness.
Remember someone (I think it was Linus) in Peanuts telling Charlie Brown not to think about his tongue? The result was that his tongue was all he was able to think about for the next three days.
It’s true. Think about anything and you’ll see it, you’ll hear it, you’ll sense it all around you. Next time you take a walk put your mind on front doors or roofing materials and you’ll see more kinds of front doors and roofing materials than you ever saw before.
And if it’s true about white horses and makes of cars and front doors and roofing materials, it’s true about ideas.
I once saw a TV interview with Eric Hoffer, the longshoreman/philosopher, and he said the same thing.
The interviewer asked him how he researched subjects for his books, how he got the information grist for his intellectual mill (or—if you prefer—how he got specific knowledge about a problem).
I don’t remember Mr. Hoffer’s exact words, but basically he said that he thought about the subject hard and continuously, and that as a result of that effort the information about that subject came to him.
“What do you mean—it comes to you?”
Mr. Hoffer said that if he was thinking about maintenance, for example, and how and why different cultures maintain things differently, then it seemed that every book he selected from the library shelf had something to say about that subject, every newspaper article mentioned it, things he saw and heard related to it; in short, he didn’t have to go looking for information on his subject because the information came to him.
Thomas Mann said the same thing: “If you are possessed by an idea you find it expressed everywhere, you even smell it.”
So keep your mind on it; become possessed; ask ask ask; dig dig dig. Do everything you can to get the information before you get to work.
It is the springboard you need for your leap.
