Richard Peddie's 5 Ideas: A CMA Recap

Richard Peddie, President and CEO of Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment LTD, closed out the CMA’s Advertising and Marketing forum, outlining 5 everyday things you can use for generating good ideas. These simple steps to developing fruitful ideas was an insightful way to end the conference.

Richard’s 5 tips included: 

1. Let your brand tell you the idea – Equating brands as sponges, and how by absorbing yourself into your brand allows you to engage better with it.
2. Think the talk – This attitude includes thinking of your brand as both a brand and a customer experience. Equating it to thinking like a fan, Richard stressed that there is a “constant motion that ideas are all around us for the taking.”
3. Legitimate plagiarism – By copying and adapting great ideas from peers you can fine-tune and customize great ideas to compliment your brand.
4. Expose yourself to stimuli – Listening to music, involving yourself, and overall stimulation can lead to idea generation on both the conscious and subconscious level – ideas happen everywhere.
5. Unleash your people – Those working within your organization know your brand the best. Encouraging good idea generation, empowering your employees, or offering monetary rewards fare good methods for growing ideas innerly.

Richard’s 5-step process was insightful and a great blueprint for generating ideas. Throughout his dynamic presentation it was clear that he employed these methods throughout his career, which he illustrated with examples from Maple Leafs Sports. The most important concept Richard overlooked was having the self-confidence to trust yourself and your ideas. Sticking to your guns and presenting your personal ideas in the same environment mentioned above requires self-confidence, and the ability to scrutinize your ideas with the same methods you do with your employees. To add a 6th way to generate ideas I would suggest it is most important to trust your instincts.