Clean or Dirty

I’ve always been a big fan of crime scene investigation shows. There’s something about having to solve a critical problem with the right blend physical and psychological tactics that has forced me to lose many an evening to Forensic Files marathons.

Not too long ago I was watching an episode in which there were multiple suspects. One of the investigators said, “In an investigation, the clean get cleaner and the dirty get dirtier.”

This is not unlike what happens when solving other types of problems. Throughout strategy development then concept development, good ideas find a way to live on while bad ideas tend to fade into the ether.

This happened with a campaign I worked on last year. After maybe eight rounds of internal and client reviews over two months, the client chose a concept that had appeared in the first round and off the original briefing. For many of us, that concept was always the prime suspect. It just took time to get the jury to agree.