For 13 years we have been on the front lines of bad ideas. Wait, that didn’t come out right. Let me try again. For 13 years we have been on the front lines interacting with marketers and agencies who are sick of their bad ideas and need help. That’s better. So we hear all the reasons. And sometimes it’s not until they see our process that they see what their own issues were. Anyway, here you go. The top 5 reasons marketing ideas have been lacking according to our customers.

1. YOU DON’T HAVE A CLEAR BRAND IDEA TO INSPIRE YOUR TEAMS.

   All brands have logos, but not all logos are filled with meaning. If yours is empty, your brand won’t inspire ideas. Worse, you’ll end up with random acts of marketing, which is expensive and adds up to nothing. Only with a powerful, clear, well articulated brand idea can you inspire ideas and properly evaluate them.

2. YOU HAVE THE WRONG PEOPLE COMING UP WITH THE IDEAS.

   If you need ideas quickly it’s tempting to organize a quick brainstorm with whomever is available in the office. Big mistake. Better to think about who the “idea people” are and who will bring depth to the topic, to the category of idea need (PR, social, etc.), and/or to the target audience. May take a little longer, but your ideas will thank you.

3. YOU BELIEVE IDEAS CAN ONLY HAPPEN IN PERSON.

   We have evidence that virtual idea generation is better in many ways than in-person brainstorms. With virtual sessions a thing called “online disinhibition” reduces fear of contributing ideas, which accelerates creative output. Also, there’s all the nasty human biases that can negatively influence creativity when in person are eliminated (gender bias, racial bias, etc.) because everyone on the team is reduced to a virtual typeface. Try your next brainstorm virtually and you’ll see.

4. YOU HAVE LITTLE OUTSIDE PERSPECTIVE.

   The thinking within companies, particularly on the client side, can become insular and, over time, conventional. Very important to find ways to bring outside perspective into your idea projects to guarantee a freshness to the approach and a blindness to your internal inertia. We get this one a lot and, since we don’t do the execution, we are not a threat to in-house or traditional agencies.

5. YOU AREN’T COMING UP WITH ENOUGH IDEAS.

   We see presentations with 10-15 ideas (vs the typical 3-4) are more productive when there are multiple decision makers on the client side. The one thing you can’t get into a creative brief is what the clients will like. Even two rounds of 10-15 ideas each, so the feedback to round one can be the “brief” for round two. The team will be doubly dangerous knowing what the client likes (and doesn’t like).

NOTHING IS UNTHINKABLE.

At Ideasicle X we have designed a web-based platform specifically (and only) for virtual idea generation. It provides access to the right people (to ANY people, in fact), it eliminates the issues with in-person brainstorms, it makes bringing in outside perspective easy, and it yields 35-50 ideas per one-week session. Oh, and we do brand ideas for clients all the time in case #1 above hit home.

For better marketing ideas, click to schedule a demo of the platform with Ideasicle X founder, Will Burns.

You’ll see.

Will Burns is the Founder & CEO of the revolutionary virtual-idea-generating company, Ideasicle X. He’s an advertising veteran from such agencies as Wieden & Kennedy, Goodby Silverstein, Arnold Worldwide, and Mullen. He was a Forbes Contributor for nine years writing about creativity in modern branding. Sign up for the Ideasicle Newsletter and never miss a post.