Branding types love to talk about ‘the big idea’: a thought that makes you feel differently about something or see things in a new way. But most so-called big ideas aren’t really that big and they don’t have much of an idea behind them either. It’s much easier to come up with touchy-feely slogans than it is to create something with real sticking power. A lot of big ideas are just froth.
But every now and then a big idea pops up as if out of nowhere, like ‘The 99%’ from the Occupy movement. It gets to the point of ‘you and me versus the super-rich’ so neatly that it’s almost impossible to skirt around the the subject of wealth and inequality without using it.