I felt a certain trepidation taking my seat for the 3rd Battle of Big Thinking: 7 bouts in a day with 21 speakers with 15 minutes apiece. It guarantees a ton of ideas but, remembering that a lot of stamina is required of the audience, it's a lot to pay attention to.

The idea behind the battle, run jointly by the Account Planning Group and Campaign magazine, is to have a succession of themed rounds that are won by the most redoubtable thinker (according to audience vote), culminating in a grand prix winner appointed at the end of the day.

Big Creative Thinking

Steve Aldridge kicked off the opening round (Creative Thinking) with an appeal to break out of the ghetto of marketing communications with creative ideas which don't look like marketing. Steering clear of ambient as best he could, he suggested that identifying the natural voice of a brand and fusing it in a relevant way with the communications channel generates creative ideas that would be more impactful and better received by audiences jaded with a surfeit of predictable communications ideas. He backed this up with a host of creative examples. Unsurprisingly, not a lot of these were ads, since one of the conventions of advertising is that it is supposed to look like advertising - or at least shouldn't be confused with editorial.

Next up was Graham Fink, who followed by recruiting us into a club of Big Thinkers that he would set up if he won. The key to big thinking, he said, is opposite thinking - and the way to get this is to bring