Hiya Claire,
Hope you’ve had a nice start to 2023 after shovelling turkey into your face like a Hungry Hippo (the game, not the animal), guzzling gravy like a warthog (if warthogs liked gravy) and nibbling away at Celebrations (with their underwhelming new wrappers) like a greedy little red squirrel, also storing mini-Snickers in your cheeks for hours of subtle melty choco-goodness, (like an oral slow cooker).
Just me?
Right, starting the year as I mean to go on, at risk of you thinking I’m a total fucking oddball, today I’m introducing you to a little part of my brain that I’ve never told anyone about before.
I'm calling it the Cranial Chasm of Chaos.
Back when I had a proper job, whenever I was in a boring meeting, my mind would regularly wander to this dystopian void deep inside my noggin, and conjure up all manner of strange potential happenings.
Just as my ultraprick of an ex-boss (or one of his nodding-dog underlings) would be rabbiting on about some pointless claptrap, the Cranial Chasm of Chaos would burst into life and start saying things to me like…
“Eh, Dave, what would happen if you took one of your shoes off now and threw it over Pam’s head into the bin?”
Or
“Eh, Dave, what would happen if you launched your plastic glass of water into the air and let it explode all over the table?”
Or
“Eh, Dave, what would happen if you laughed for five seconds longer than everyone else when Mark tells another shit joke?”
You get the picture.
Okay one more…
“Eh, Dave, what would happen if you just started mooing like a confused cow?”
My brain never actually egged-me-on enough to carry out any of these silly tasks. It was more for my own amusement in-between yawns.
Maybe you've experienced something similar?
Anyway, not long after that, when I was looking to build out my freelance copywriting thing on the side, I started taking part in creative challenges on Twitter, writing spec ads for different brands, causes, national days… allsorts.
And while I was thinking of ideas for those ads, something strange happened. A feeling I’d never had in my life....
The Cranial Chasm of Chaos activated itself in a non-boring setting.
It wasn’t just there to amuse me by being weird in dull meetings. It was there to spit out weird ideas that might actually work as ads. So I ran with them.
Here are three examples…
1. CREATE A RESPONSE AD ABOUT THE COURGETTE CRISIS
Back in January 2017, cold weather in Italy and Spain led to a UK courgette crisis, and healthy eaters everywhere were losing their shit that they couldn't pick up any courgetti in the supermarket.
This was my thought process:
> Okay there are no courgettes cos of the cold weather.
> But that’s boring. Too obvious. Why else might they be unavailable?
> Maybe it’s a conspiracy. Maybe they’ve been kidnapped. But why?
> Maybe the kidnapper doesn’t want people eating courgetti, because it’s eating into their spaghetti sales.
The Cranial Chasm of Chaos kicks in…
“Eh, Dave, what would happen if Napolina whacked courgetti?”
Here’s what happened >>>
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