What’s the Big Idea? | Jose Garcia

One night as I was looking for conferences in the BIC new microsite, one of my classmates popped up in our group chat and recommended a conference opportunity taking place the following night, Wednesday, February 26, 2020.  I immediately looked it up. At first, I was intrigued by the modality, but then, I decided to give it a try because of the nature of the event, a game show called, What's the Big Idea?  The show explores what is a big idea in an unconventional and humorous way yet educationally and intellectually.

The topic of the idea, big idea, serendipity, aha moment, eureka, has always fascinated me—the source of inspiration, spontaneously or by research. The insight behind an idea or big idea, I can go on and on about this topic. So, I decided to go to the game show, What's the Big Idea?

As I was traveling from work to the show in the Lower East Side on the F-train, and building anticipation for what to expect to gain from the show, I began to wonder about the concept of "big idea," particularly in the marketing context, and how the advertising industry has utilized this concept. Marketers have used this concept to change the perceptions of consumers for decades. And then the moment came when I asked myself: What's the future of the big idea? In the era of Social Media and story-doing, would the concept of big idea remain relevant or would it evolve?

I got to the Lower East Side too early for the 9:30 p.m. show and starving, I surveyed the area, located the venue of the show: Caveat at 21A Clinton St., and decided to get a bite. Of course, I could not miss the opportunity to eat at the most famous deli in America, NYC's legendary Katz's Deli, which itself embodies the Big Idea concept.

After a delicious, indulgent dinner, I began my short walk to the show at Caveat. I got there too early.  And as I was waiting in line, my brain went back to my questions about the relevance of the Big Idea. As Social Media and story-doing permeate our everyday lives, brands and marketers have the ability to collect data and deliver informed content to their consumers. So now that brands and marketers have so much data at their disposal, are big ideas suffocating progress and innovation, or will they remain relevant for marketers? Perhaps at the show, I would get some answers. 

After much anticipation, Ethyl opened the doors.

On the website, Caveat describes the What's the Big Idea show as a fast-moving panel game show exploring the future's audacious and potentially irresponsible projects that could change society forever--even if maybe they won't. The show presents three big ideas to a selected panel of comedians who must figure out if they're real or fake… and if they're real, whether they'll change the world. The ideas range from a space elevator on the moon (real) to a greenhouse-gas scrubber attachment for cow buttholes (fake), and they believe that no Big Idea is too big or too absurd for What's the Big Idea.

The host, Eric Cunningham, is a comedy writer in NYC, currently a senior writer at Más Mejor, Broadway Video's Comedy Studio for Latino Voices. He opens and proceeds to explain to the audience what is a Big Idea and what is not a Big Idea. Eric claims that the best way to learn to distinguish a genuine big idea from a fake big idea is with a game called Big Idea or Small Potatoes. He engages the audience by yelling out topics, and the audience has to guess whether the ideas are real or fake by yelling ''big idea'' or ''small potatoes.'' Some of the ideas that Eric presented were:

• space stop 
• Kevin James movie
• climate change 
• artificial intelligence
• Donatello--his childhood turtle, green energy 
• (actual) small potatoes. 

After the game with the audience, Eric introduces the panelists: Kate Sidley is a writer at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, she also co-hosts Liquid Courage, a monthly sketch open mic at UCBT; Saurin Choksi produces and hosts Brown Privilege Comedy, showcasing an inclusive lineup of the best comedians at Friends and Lovers in Crown Heights, Brooklyn; and Julia Young is a comedy writer, stand-up comic, actress and improviser.

Eric also introduced the game mascot, a virtual robot.

The first set of questions Eric asked to the panel were:

What's something you're excited about seeing in the future that you wish you had today, and at what age do you think you are going to die?

Kate Sidley:

I really wish self-driving cars that actually worked were here today because I am not a good driver or confident driver, and I don't know how to parallel or regular park.
I think you can make my life so nice if I could have a reliable car that drove itself. OK. Controversial. I don't think I'm going to die. Yeah. I hate it. It's just like a weird feeling. 

Saurin Choksi:

I mean, I’d like a robot. Just a general, not like a sex, one. I think that I would like to have a robot and then it could be my son. I believe it because I would like to have kids but I'd like to be able to turn them off. And, I think I got a good, say, a hundred and twelve.  

Julia Young:

This is something that I've actually spoken about before to my husband, but I feel like in the future movies when I was growing up, I always said that we would all be wearing matching silver jumpsuits, and that's it. And I would love that future, without shopping for clothes. And I just want to slap my jumpsuit on and go everywhere in a jumpsuit with no judgment. That's what I love. When am I going to die? I'm not as optimistic. I feel like I've maybe a good twenty-five, max thirty years. 

Eric proceeds to explain to the panel how the game is going to work with a sample big idea and indicates that their task is to say whether the idea is (1) real, (2) fake, or (3) real, but never going to work.

Here are the three big ideas as Eric presented to the panel:

First big idea
Getting to space is hard, and rockets have a fuel problem, for every ton of fuel, rockets need more fuel to get that fuel off the ground. That's why spaceship rockets are as big as a building and carry a satellite the size of a car. Big idea, spin a centrifuge and launch systems in orbit by spinning them around and catapulting them into space. How does it work? Put a satellite in the centrifuge, and spin centrifuge. Release satellite. Who developed it? Catapult Ventures, a subsidiary of Chemical Ventures. They've raised $30 million, and their CEO is Jonathan Janary. How can it change the world? Multiple launches every single day and a fraction of the cost beats Elon Musk’s effort to make rockets reusable. You can't spin long enough; you would just slow the centrifuge down a bit. You don't reach orbit, and you bomb a city instead. And that is the first big idea.

After each contestant votes, it is revealed that this Big Idea is real.

Second big idea
People are obsessed with their appearances, and it's destroying both the Earth and us. The beauty industry is worth seven billion dollars in exploiting our insecurities. Last year, the beauty industry produced over 76.8 billion units of plastic packaging. The big idea: The Shave the Earth Movement urges us to use less water and then there will be fewer products to take care of. Followers tend to be free from participating in a culture obsessed with looks. How does it work? These are evangelical heroes to reduce waste. Convincing person to person and convincing others. They started a very small sisterhood living community, perfectly loving, asking their government to create a tax incentive for shaved residents to save all the stuff they're hoping would become the norm in Newfoundland and around the world. How could we change the world? People use fewer hair and beauty products that the industry has been forcing us to adapt to cultural behavior. And here's the crazy part. Their colleagues are being paid well enough, and the profession is seen as a means of upward mobility. And that is the big idea.

After each contestant votes, it is revealed that this Big Idea is fake.

Final and third big idea
Cleaning up pollution also burns fuel. The BP oil spill is costing $65 billion just to clean up, The big idea. Something called Mycoremediation. What that is, is using mushrooms to eat plastics and other pollutants in water. Restoring forest and bird lands and eating radiation. How does it work? Use fungi to eat plastics. Who is the person who's leading this is? A  guy -- oh, we're going to read my notes on this to make sure I get his name correctly. Paul Stamets of Fungi Perfecti, LLC. His website advertises him as a fun guy with fungi. (Pauses for laughter.) How do you change your world? A natural carbon-neutral clean up using the environment to save the environment. And here's the crazy part. The mushrooms are edible. You can actually reduce pollution through edible mushrooms. So, what do we think?

After each contestant votes, it is revealed that this Big Idea is real.

But at the end of Eric’s first big idea, two more co-hosts and improvisers, Shannon Constantine of Comedy Central and Chandler Dean of West Wing Writers, appear on stage and introduce a game called Reinvent the Wheel. Shannon claimed that Silicon Valley is full of so many -- you know, faded, new ideas. "You know, and I know it. We all know it," she said. Shannon challenged the audience with a list of reboots, revivals, remixes of old ideas. "So, I'm going to announce a new company providing a good or service. And you guys are going to guess what old fashioned thing is it reinventing." This is hilarious.  And this part of the educational game shows the evolution of some of the goods or services that you may think are new when, in reality, they have been around for a long time.

The improvisers introduced a second game, emulating the Shark Tank show, and the panelists were the potential investors.  The improvisers asked the audience about a problem that they have for which a solution can benefit society. Two members of the audience each shared individual problems:  (1) too many emails, and (2) lack of will to iron clothes. Shannon and Chandler left the stage only to come back by the end of Eric's second big idea. Shannon and Chandler presented a marketing deck with a big idea that combined the two answers by the members of the audience into one silly but innovative solution to both problems (creating clothing out of printed excess emails). Shannon and Chandler impersonated funny, know-it-all marketing gurus; however, it was quite impressive how they created a long presentation-deck with fun facts and insights presenting a “solution” to the combined problems offered by the two audience members.  In this way the improvisors added an element of marketing a funny, new idea, embedded within the game show format of the Big Idea.

What's the Big Idea game show gave me the answers to my questions in an unconventional way. The hilarious show allowed me to reflect on my questions about the value and future of big ideas. Brands and marketers are now communicating, interacting, and creating experiences with consumers using more media channels and devices than ever before. Therefore, having consistent, ownable and unique selling propositions or "big ideas" unifies the brand across all of them.

Coming out with big ideas is not easy, but it is not impossible. The show, What's the Big Idea, has also allowed me to see humor as a tool for developing big ideas. It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers. But more importantly, it takes a big idea to get consumers to buy your product.