There’s a pattern I’ve noticed over the years.
The campaigns that really land, the ones that feel confident, connected and hard to ignore, nearly always start in the same place. Not with channels. Not with formats. And definitely not with a media plan.
They start with a clear idea. One central thought that everything else connects back to.
You might call it a unifying platform. Or an overarching creative direction. Or simply “the campaign idea”. The label doesn’t really matter. What matters is that everyone involved is aligned on the same thing: what’s the idea we’re building from, and what’s it all in service of?
Because when that’s clear, everything else becomes easier.
With a recent client, we saw this very clearly. Initially, there were multiple campaign ideas running in parallel, each trying to solve a slightly different problem. Individually they made sense, but together they competed for attention.
Once everything was aligned around one clear, connected idea, the work immediately felt more confident and coherent. Not because we added more activity, but because everything was finally pulling in the same direction.
From the audience’s point of view, it’s all one experience
One of the biggest reasons this approach works is also the simplest.
People don’t experience brands in channels.
They don’t separate PR from social or paid from content. They just experience a brand across different places, moments and formats. To them, it’s one journey.
When campaigns are planned channel-first, that disconnect often becomes obvious. Messages fragment. Creative loses consistency. And the audience is left to join the dots themselves.
Years ago, I worked with a high-profile UK high-street retail brand that planned campaigns channel by channel. Each team was doing good work, but it never quite added up to a single experience.
When we flipped the thinking and started with one central campaign idea instead, decisions became quicker, messaging tightened, and the campaign finally felt joined-up from the outside. The work didn’t change overnight. The clarity did.
An idea-led approach fixes this by design. It starts with the story, then works out how that story should be expressed in different places in a way that feels connected, intentional and recognisable.
The idea shapes the strategy. The strategy guides the channels.
One idea doesn’t limit creativity. It focuses it.
There’s sometimes a fear that committing to one central idea will box teams in.
In reality, it does the opposite. Clarity creates freedom. It removes guesswork, speeds up decision-making, and means creative energy goes into making the idea work harder, rather than constantly reinventing it.
The campaigns that struggle most are usually the ones trying to say too many things at once.
More broadly, this is something I’ve seen repeatedly over the years, and even more so now as marketing budgets come under pressure.
One focused campaign, built around a single clear idea, will almost always work harder and feel bigger than three or four separate ones all trying to say different things.
When spend has to work harder, focus stops being a nice-to-have and starts becoming essential.
When you start with one clear idea everything ladders up to, channels stop competing for attention. PR has something meaningful to talk about, social reinforces the story, and paid knows exactly what it’s there to amplify.
The result is one experience, not lots of separate parts.
Call it what you like, but it’s about alignment
Whether you call it a campaign idea, a unifying platform, a creative direction or just “the thing we’re all building from”, the principle is the same.
The most effective marketing doesn’t start with channels. It starts with clarity. A clear idea at the heart of the strategy, giving everything else something to connect back to.
When that’s in place, channels stop behaving like separate workstreams and start working together. Decisions get easier. Creative gets sharper. And from the audience’s point of view, it all feels like one joined-up journey.
That’s why at BIG Partnership we work in an ideas-first way. Not because channels don’t matter, but because they work best when they’re built around one clear, connected thought.
That’s what we really mean by strategy-led, idea-driven marketing.
Back to blog