Half-Baked Marketing Ideas
Generate independently, challenge openly, and improve promising campaign ideas live.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 98%
Half-Baked Marketing Ideas is a collaborative ideation format built around independent preparation and immediate peer critique. Begin with a pool of genuine company or campaign challenges, divide a subset among participants, and prevent them from seeing one another’s proposed solutions. Each participant then presents an intentionally unfinished idea. The partner either identifies why it should be rejected or adds mechanisms that make it stronger. The method separates idea generation from consensus, reducing the chance that collaborators merely increment on the first suggestion. It also treats unfinished thinking as useful raw material rather than something that must be polished before discussion. The output is a set of challenged, extended concepts that can move into validation or implementation.
Origin
Extracted from Marketing Against The Grain, where Kipp Bodnar and Kieran Flanagan independently prepared campaign ideas and critiqued them during the episode.
Core principles
- 01Independent thinking prevents premature consensus.
- 02Immediate criticism exposes weak assumptions.
- 03Promising ideas improve through collaborative additions.
- 04A large submission pool creates useful creative constraints.
How to run it
- 1
Source Real Challenges
Invite companies or internal stakeholders to submit specific marketing problems that need an unconventional campaign idea.
Pro tip Choose challenges from different products and markets to avoid repetitive thinking.
Watch out Do not begin with vague requests such as simply wanting more growth.
- 2
Divide the Submissions
Assign a manageable subset of challenges to each participant so they can think independently.
Pro tip Keep each participant’s proposed solutions hidden from the others.
Watch out Sharing early drafts can create anchoring and groupthink.
- 3
Prepare an Unfinished Idea
Develop a campaign mechanism, intended audience response, and likely business payoff without over-polishing the concept.
Pro tip Make the central mechanism explainable in a few sentences.
Watch out Do not mistake additional detail for a stronger underlying idea.
- 4
Present and Challenge
Present the idea to a partner who must either identify its weakness or contribute an improvement.
Pro tip Ask whether the campaign demonstrates the product while earning attention.
Watch out Avoid polite agreement that leaves flawed assumptions untested.
- 5
Capture the Improved Concept
Document the surviving idea, the additions made during critique, and the next assumption that needs validation.
Pro tip Preserve rejected ideas when their failure teaches a reusable lesson.
Watch out Do not treat a successful brainstorm as proof that the market will respond.
In the wild
Kipp and Kieran selected different companies from audience submissions without revealing their ideas to each other. During the episode, each presented a campaign and invited the other to reject it or add a stronger mechanism.
→ Several initial concepts gained additional distribution, content, or incentive mechanisms through live critique.
Common mistakes
Sharing Ideas Too Early
Early sharing causes participants to converge on one framing before independent alternatives exist.
Defending Every Draft
The format fails when participants treat criticism of an unfinished idea as a personal attack.
Stopping at Entertainment
A memorable campaign still needs a credible connection to product use, leads, or customer acquisition.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for creative teams, agencies, and collaborators who can critique each other candidly.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal when participants cannot tolerate unfinished ideas or constructive disagreement.
From the transcript
“We've taken a big subset of them. We've put our brain power against them. We have not told each other what we're what our ideas…”
“So we're gonna bring them live in person, and if they're bad ideas, the other person is gonna shoot them down. If they're good ideas,…”
From the episode
‘Half-Baked Marketing Ideas’ with Kipp Bodnar and Kieran Flanagan
Kipp Bodnar