Thrashing, as described by Marketing Guru Seth Godin in his book Linchpin, is the “apparently productive brainstorming and tweaking we do for a project as it develops.”
As a practitioner of Marketing Communications and Advertising, there is nothing more thrilling than that Eureka! moment when an idea that you have been searching for (either consciously or unconsciously) emerges and grasps you.
In most cases, the venue to help uncover this idea is through very thorough and fruitful Thrashing. But thrashing doesn’t end with the concept; this goes on through up until we launch a project.
SO, WHEN DO WE THRASH?
Ideally, we throw a heap of thrashing during the conceptualization stage. Not necessarily during the first brainstorming or idea pooling since essentially, at this stage, no idea is a wrong idea. However, it does not presuppose also that we stop thrashing after the conceptualization stage. In my experience, we continue to thrash on a project up until the target deadline. As we move closer to the intended ship date (please see related topic on shipping), the thrashing becomes more targeted and more concerned on non-critical matters. However, what usually happens is the complete opposite. Most companies thrash late in the game.
The following theories on thrashing are not in Seth Godin’s book, and my own interpretation of different levels of Thrashing.
CONCEPTUAL THRASHING
Is defined by checking and measuring the core concept. The core concept is usually the product, the main motherhood idea, a software, a blog, the game document or the core brand itself. Basically thrashing at this stage tests or should merit an answer to the question WHAT IS?
Thrashing at this particular area is the most critical part since if we fail to thrash here now then all other ideas that will be born at this point may suffer.
STRATEGIC THRASHING
Asks the question “Will our strategy work?” This more or less is where we look at the marketing construct. Is our target market right? Are our insights right? Are we doing something too radical, too different, too soon? Answers the question HOW. How will we get the product out or how will we get the idea out. In proper or more traditional marketing, this can be similar to channel testing. Is the marketing, distribution, manufacturing method correct?
CREATIVES THRASHING
This is the tricky part. In most cases, from experience, people tend to thrash on the Creatives first since it is the most visible (or at least easily imagined). In my various meetings and brainstorming sessions, most of the time, people come up with the end product first before they get to the core. (They reverse engineer their conceptualization process)
Now this may work from time to time, however, there is that danger of fitting the core concept to our idealized output. If, say, we thought of a clever tagline before we even start considering target market, concepts and objectives and strategies and we fall in love with this idea at this point, we might retrofit our core components to suit the tagline. It’s like fitting in the engineering aspects last in a housing project. The tendency is for that beautifully looking house to collapse within minutes once it’s made.
DANGERS OF NOT THRASHING
The French call it Espirit de l’escalier or the spirit of the stairs. It’s a phrase to represent things that you may want to argue or say in a given conversation or debate but were not able to do so during that time and you only begin to think about these things once the moment to action has passed. In the same way, THRASHING late (or not THRASHING AT ALL) gives the same idea. It’s either you ship the product, realize later that it has a lot of bugs, recall the item off the market and find a solution or you extend your deadline indefinitely. Point is, once a product ships or once an idea ships, that’s it, it’s not in your hands anymore. (Or paraphrasing from Melanie Marquez, “It’s their problem anymore!”)
WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR
If there is one pitfall of thrashing it is this: all too often, we involve people who are irrelevant to the thrashing method. Involving people is good in a thrashing session, but don’t involve everybody. Keep in mind those that can best contribute to the expansion of the idea. If you’re not selling cat food, please keep your cat and grandmother out of the brainstorming session. Remember, “too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the soup”.
Tip: Immediately involve people with strategic insights. When you have an idea developing then involve key decision makers so you can have enough data to back your opinions. Remember, life’s a pitch!
All in all, thrashing is in most cases what we all do in any given project. It’s just that, maybe, we don’t consciously practice it. And by creating a minor framework to maneuver in we may be able to properly harness thrashing to avoid being trashy.
