Media agencies and creative agencies often have torrid relationships. They often plead a certain degree of ignorance as to how the other adds value. Often media try and shape creative when it’s not really in their interest. They evaluate it, when they haven’t been trained to.

Maybe it’s a jealousy thing.

Creative agencies are the kind you imagine when you think of the recklessness of Mad Men, albeit in a heavily watered down political correctness kind of way. Creative is the cooler older brother, liberated from mum and dad’s rules he smokes, drinks and has a tattoo. An ad agency is (generally speaking) free from the shackles of spreadsheets and reems of data, meaning this side of the fence should encourage creativity and a more fun, exciting environment. It’s more emotional. It’s like this because within this environment ideas are supposed to flourish. The really big ideas that change behaviours.

An often they do. Problem is, try and explain that to anyone outside the industry and they don’t really understand it. What an idea is, how its created, the pain that goes with it.

How can we boil down what an idea actually is?

For me, it’s something that comes from the soul. It is created in the heart. It’s personal and powerful and although it’s created through emotion, it is automatically rationalised.

Logic is stamped into our DNA. Ideas may start life emotionally but they become rationalised. This is our natural way of testing the water.

Think of building a shed in your back garden or creating an app. Or even the aeroplane.

I imagine the idea was to create something that could move and glide in the air. As soon as this was dreamt up questions would of flooded the mind. Maybe, it was we need to include a mechanism that can power this vessel into the air or something that can help it remain airborne. Immediate rationalisation sets in.

To bring it back a level, can a creative idea therefore ever be media agnostic? This would suggest not. There will always be reasoning involved which means that media will already have been considered between idea formulation and the second its been jotted on a page.

As a footnote, John Hegarty and Martin Sorrell live at opposite ends of the spectrum on this. Sir John is a true creative genius who has dreamt up many fine ideas. I’ll probably take his word for it.