Supposing you were stranded alone in a forest at night.
It’s freezing cold, it’s raining, and there’s a biting wind.
You’ve got no clothes, you’re soaking wet and starving hungry.
All you can think of is getting indoors out of the rain, into the dry.
Then you see a little wooden hut in the forest.
You knock on the door, they invite you in.
They put you by the roaring fire.
They dry you off, they give you nice, warm fluffy clothes to wear.
They give you hot, thick soup to drink.
That’s the happiest moment of your life.
It’s a feeling of pure bliss.
You’ve got everything you desired.
But wait a minute.
If the little cabin made you that happy, wouldn’t a bigger cabin make you even happier?
Wouldn’t more clothes increase your happiness even further?
How about a bigger fire and more food?
If what you had made you happy, then wouldn’t twice as much make you twice as happy?
And three times as much must make you three times as happy, right?
Well actually, no.
As we all know, it doesn’t work like that.
What happens is what’s known as The Law Of Diminishing Marginal Returns.
After the initial satisfaction, every additional unit has less and less effect.
The more you have, the less each subsequent unit is worth.
Like drinking beer.
The first glass of ice cold beer is great, the fifth not quite so great, and by the ninth it’s just another beer.
It works that way with everything: cigarettes, drugs, food, cars, shoes, sex, travel, fame.
Sure it’s always good to have more.
But it’s never as good as the original.
And each one is worth slightly less than the one before.
It has to be that way.
The first of anything represents 100% gain.
That’s the difference between nothing and everything.
Then the second only represents a 50% gain.
And the third, still less, a 33% gain.
The fourth, a 25% gain, and so on.
Our job is no different.
The more we fuss and fiddle with something, the less return we get on our effort.
It’s diminishing marginal returns.
Given we get far more return on our effort at the beginning of the process, it makes sense to put most effort in there.
But we don’t do that.
We see something new and fresh and original, and we agree it’s great.
Then we stop, and spend months debating every tiny detail.
Polishing it, picking over it, honing it, researching it, worrying about it, fiddling with it, reviewing it, considering alternatives.
Concentrating on everything except the initial idea that got us excited.
In fact, we put much more effort into perfecting each miniscule nuance than we did into the original idea.
And when eventually, after months and months we run it, it doesn’t feel as fresh, and new, and original as it did at first.
And we wonder why.
What we don’t realise is that, sometimes, making it better is making it worse.
Maybe we should put our attention onto coming up with new ideas.
Not diminishing marginal returns on existing ones.
Lovely.
Kev - 25 June 2012 9:40 am
Dave – U scared me there 4 a moment – Hot soup + fluffy clothes from strangers in the middle of a forest is usually the preemptor 2 an axe thru the head + the consummation of your body parts.
Grilla Login - 25 June 2012 11:07 am
My toy idea is like that. Since then I’ve got bogged down in the pre-patent process. It’s like the Battle of the Bulge.
john p woods - 25 June 2012 11:14 am
The critique of the law of diminishing returns (the downward sloping demand curve) is fascinating.
Sometimes it is the 2nd, 3rd of 4th unit consumed that increases marginal utility the most, weird. I.e. the 3rd beer went down best, no kid likes their first ever cigarette do they. The first time we have sex (well), do public speaking, acting, first time driving abroad, eating mushrooms, anchovies, playing tennis, the first ten minutes on a long cycle ride, writing the first few sentences or watching England play football (maybe not).
They are individual demand curves. And ever bodies is different that is the problem.
Jim - 25 June 2012 11:32 am
Jim,
It depends where you start counting from.
Your first ever cigarette certainly wasn’t very good.
But your first cigarette of the day is the best, so is first cup of coffee or tea, etc.
The very first idea you ever had probably wasn’t your best.
But, on a daily basis, actually having the idea delivers a bigger return on time and effort than constantly honing it.
That’s been my experience.
Dave Trott - 25 June 2012 11:50 am
Of course, it could be a chainsaw, crossbow or claw hammer.
Grilla Login - 25 June 2012 12:31 pm
But seeing as ‘they’ live in a small hut in the middle of the forest then naturally the son will work in an abattoir. There4, a bolt gun is a safe bet.
Grilla Login - 25 June 2012 1:01 pm
I think we maybe confusing two theories here, diminishing marginal utility and dis-economies of scale.
The first is about diminishing marginal utility as qty of consumption is increased (demand). The first pint gives most utility where as the 8th or 9th very little marginally.
The latter is diminishing returns of productivity as resources are added to the production process (supply). Increasing people looking at a brief from 1 to 2 / 3 people increases productivity where as adding 5 or 6 decreases, too many cooks and all that?
Jim - 25 June 2012 1:12 pm
Jim…
Polishing it, picking over it, honing it, researching it, worrying about it, fiddling with it, reviewing it, considering alternatives.
Sam Burn - 25 June 2012 1:30 pm
We’ve always had this belief in advertising that your idea couldn’t be any good if you had it too quickly. If you were briefed on a project on Monday morning and you solved it by end of day Monday, everyone would conclude that it’s a terrible idea. You have to keep working up to the deadline and only then will someone like your idea. My partner and I always hide our best ideas until the Creative Director is in a panic because it’s the 11th hour. We show them when we know he’ll have little or no time to change them. Why do we always assume that our last idea is better than our first?
Cal - 25 June 2012 4:05 pm
It’s a good point Cal.
How about if an agency said, if we get you a good idea quickly will you pay more for it, after all speedy solution is more valuable isn’t it?
Nah, we’d rather see the time-sheets and the hours and all the people that touched it and then put it through some test audience so it stinks like Rooney’s backside.
What we need is a 3 month idea please.
Jim - 25 June 2012 5:26 pm
It is the flash which appears, the thunderbolt will follow. – Voltaire
john p woods - 25 June 2012 7:00 pm
Grilla, I bet they make and sell meat pies in that little hut. But suspiciously, there are never any deliveries from the butcher.
Kate - 26 June 2012 12:19 am
I once worked in an agency that had only one client left. (No big deal for the owner – he had merrily transferred the other clients either to his overseas offices or his other agencies.) With only one brief, I thought I would spend as many hours as I could working on it. Which I did. So, on Monday, I spent 7 hours, Tue, 6 etc.
But finance said I was losing the agency money because they couldn’t possibly bill the clients all those hours.
Apparently, everyone would have been much happier for me to spend 4 hours and the rest of the time goggling, YouTubing or something equally irrelvant.
Robin. - 26 June 2012 1:32 am
“Our jobs are the same…The more we fuss and fiddle with something, the less return we get on our effort.”
I’m glad you don’t work for me
Seems like there is a lot of research that indicates the exact opposite of this. Ever hear of the 10,000 hour rule?
Check out the book: Imagine-How Creativity Works by
Jonah Lehrer.
Eddy - 26 June 2012 8:08 am
Dave,
There is one experience which never reduces in deliverance.
That’s taking a Russian Sauna in the middle of Winter
then flying spreadeagled into a metre of snow naked
not knowing what lies underneath.
Over to you Grilla.
Kev - 26 June 2012 8:44 am
Grilla,
Just thought you may like this easy listening track to push the story along:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3c3gsjgdXA&feature=related
Kev - 26 June 2012 9:04 am
True, ideas frequently die the death of a thousand tweaks. But sometimes it’s the willingness to spend a disproportionate amount of time making an idea better by a extra few percentage points that pushes something from being good to being great.
CCM - 26 June 2012 9:37 am
You stole my diary and put the last entry I wrote, here.
:p
Ra - 26 June 2012 9:44 am
Kevin – I know where Cal + his partner hide their best ideas. Shall u, me + Dave go nick them?
Grilla Login - 26 June 2012 10:37 am
Quick Cal swap ‘em for the shit ones.
Jim - 26 June 2012 11:41 am
A client I worked for told me she automatically rejected the agency’s first ideas. Whatever they were. Daft bint.
Les Comy-Fashion - 26 June 2012 12:01 pm
I adore your psychology/philosophy. It’s how I think. The law of diminishing returns is true. As is the law of the wannabe. Sell the punk the upgrade. Everyone believes they’re one step ahead of their game – and spending power. And thinking power. It was always where I pitched my headlines and copy. Notably Rolls Royce – flowering lingo to self made scrap metal merchants (aristocracy buy Bentleys.)
True to life, everything will be re-invented and some things will be invented.
It’s the “some things that are invented” that capture humans not-yet-saturated-and-never-will-be thirsty imaginations.
The quest for originality – the invention – drove me nuts as a copywriter. Because I ended up being compromised by play it safe account handlers and cautious ad agency policy. In the “creative department” I was injected with the play it safe brief. And “look how clever I am” meetings.
I missed an opportunity that is still there. I think better now. And maybe I’ll get that opportunity again.
But for now I find it safer doing screenplays because I know I don’t have to be safe.
So I totally agree. We should all pay our attention to coming up with new ideas!
And wrap them in the freedom they deserve.
Julian Williams - 26 June 2012 3:40 pm
Grilla, I’m not into nicking stuff.
I’d rather have a career ruined by honesty.
Kev - 26 June 2012 9:11 pm
It’s the price you pay for principles.There’s no joy in walking up to a podium to collect an honour for someone else’s work. It is a far greater pleasure seeing someone else win something where you know you have been a catalyst because that means you made it happen for someone else.
Kev - 26 June 2012 9:28 pm
So, it’s just me + Dave then, Kevin. Would u consider acting as look-out, or wood that warrant a visit 2 the confession box, + 3 hail Mary’s as well?
Grilla Login - 27 June 2012 12:29 pm
Kevin – As I like u, I’ll let u in on a small secret:
In the split second be4 the comperes announced the winners, my thoughts used 2 occilate between ‘Hope I don’t have 2 go up there in front of all these people/Hope I do’, 115 times.
PS. As yet, I don’t like u well enough 2 let u in on a medium size or big secret.
Grilla Login - 27 June 2012 5:39 pm
Sam,
you get it.
Dave Trott - 28 June 2012 12:23 pm
Dave,
Where does this attitude http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfDCNpaPBiA fit in to the law of diminishing returns?
john p woods - 28 June 2012 12:45 pm
“But I think it’s very, very important for us not be under the illusion that anybody else cares.”
Saul Bass definitely gets it.
Dave Trott - 29 June 2012 8:40 am