“Ideas are precious things, and in the digital world it is clear that it is strong ideas alone that will defeat the noise, the fragmentation and the clutter.” There are two new roles that advertising ideas play in the digital age, which I don’t believe they have played before. First, they have become systems of management. Amidst the chaos, they offer a frame of reference for all a brand’s activities; a principled compass against which activities can be assessed, accepted or rejected; and a visual and physical housing for how the brand interacts with its consumer. This is an editorial role. Second, they are connectors to other ideas, in other disciplines, which are also undergoing redefinition. Brian Collins, my former colleague who ran our Brand Integration Group at Ogilvy & Mather and now heads his own successful design agency, refers to “brand” as the promise, and to “design” as the performance, evidence of a promise kept. More than developing an identity or creating an advertisement, brands are a tool to shape business – not something to build to, but something to build from. IDEA VS. EXECUTION