Ideas consulting

Once asked for my ideal job, I said that I’d like someone to come and collect my ideas on a Friday and pay me for them. I have ideas constantly, even when not on the clock. Watching the news, I am coming up with new policies for politicians and over dinner I am re-thinking the salt shaker. I never thought that selling ideas was a possible career move, but the more I worked as an author, journalist, artist, researcher and copywriter the more it seemed like it was both possible and something I was already moving towards.

A few chance meetings later and I was selling innovative and often disruptive ideas to all kinds of businesses. Those who needed ideas for a PR campaign, for a disruptive stunt or a new way to get covered in the media started to come to me. My client list expanded exclusively via word of mouth as the attention my ideas got clients grew. It now includes business, media, arts organisations, PRs, trades unions and charities.

I work to a brief or I create my own. Sometimes it’s a PR company stuck with a difficult client to promote, other times it’s a brand that needs a new set of eyes for a re-think or a charity looking for inspiration. But I love a challenge and always rise to it.

Some of my clients don’t like others to know where they get ideas from, or that they need ideas from outside their organisation at all. So I do sometimes have to be a little vague about what I do and for whom. But, suffice to say, I have worked with and for many high profile businesses and even carried out a re-brand for those who are known for their branding expertise.

Contact me on iain@thisidea.co.uk to find out what ideas I have for you.

“When I met Iain wearing a lanyard declaring that he was legendary US prankster Joey Skaggs, I knew that this was someone that I wanted to work with. He is now part of a community of collaborators I deploy when I am stuck for ideas or need inspirational copy. His propensity for and knowledge of left-field ideas is a thing of wonder. I have enjoyed using his freelance thinking to enable some rather disruptive pseudo events.”

Mark Borkowski, founder and head of Borkowski PR

“Iain’s creative mind is the sort one wants to handle problems. He scurries away and quietly broils up a series of marketing and public relations ideas that lesser people would only conceive with breathtaking amounts of off-label medication. I endorse Iain’s abilities, and his good sense to put them in the service of legal commerce rather than villainy.”

Jason Martin, CEO, Iotum