Getting to an idea worth fighting for rarely begins from an obvious starting point. Inspired by former Wieden+Kennedy Creative Director Jason Bagley, this series uses provocative questions to mine the Big Ideas That Work Engines for repeatable creative tactics that can help answer them.
This time, we’re asking:
How can we make the consequence confront the behaviour?
Here are six campaigns that probably weren’t thought of by asking this question and a few others, but they could have been...
- Turn the lasting damage into a character
- Let the warning sign follow them
- Make the silenced consequence confront power
- Put the real cost bearer inside the decision
- Turn the victim into the warning
- Design the person who could survive it
1. Make the silenced consequence confront power
Create a character who must live with the permanent consequences of the behaviour.
The Shotline · Change the Ref · MullenLowe · 2024
Gun violence is often translated into statistics, allowing political inaction to remain emotionally remote. With the consent of their families, The Shotline used AI to recreate the voices of victims so they could call US politicians and demand gun reform. The people permanently silenced by the issue became the voices confronting those with the power to address it. The execution is ethically sensitive, but the strategic reversal is formidable: absence becomes direct political pressure.
The question that could have produced it:
How could the people silenced by the problem speak directly to those allowing it to continue?
The creative move: Consequences of Inaction → Consequences Engine
2. Let the warning sign follow them
Give an easily ignored warning a persistent presence that demands to be noticed.
#FollowedByCancer · Ovarian Cancer Action · TBWA\ · 2022
The symptoms of ovarian cancer can be persistent yet easy to overlook. #FollowedByCancer turned four of them into social accounts that followed women on Twitter. What could be dismissed inside the body became an external presence that refused to disappear. The platform behaviour carried the health message: being followed felt minor at first, then increasingly difficult to ignore. Instead of describing what unattended symptoms might lead to, the campaign made those warning signs actively pursue attention.
The question that could have produced it:
How could the warning people ignore keep following them until they notice it?
The creative move: Consequences of Inaction → Consequences Engine
3. Put the real cost bearer inside the decision
Give those harmed by inaction a voice that can challenge the people responsible.
#IWillDriveYouHome · ICICI Bank · Ogilvy · 2018
People can know drink-driving is dangerous while still treating the danger as something that happens to somebody else. ICICI Bank replaced that abstract possibility with Hemraj Sharma, a father whose son was killed by a drink-driver. He drove people home safely and shared his story during the journey. The person already living with the consequence entered the car before another driver could create it. Knowledge became an encounter, at the precise moment rationalisation might otherwise win.
The question that could have produced it:
Who has already paid the price of this behaviour, and how could we place them inside the decision?
The creative move: Self-Reflection Perspective → Perspectives Engine
