Hot breasts and thighs. Creative thinking gone wrong.

It’s been said more than once, especially in business brainstorming sessions, that there are “no bad ideas.” When I’m in that type of meeting, I’m often quick to offer up the first idea that comes to mind, however lame it may seem, to get the conversation flowing and make others comfortable sharing. And you never know what might spark someone else’s idea.

While this open and collaborative environment breeds great ideas, early in my career I proved that yes, there can be bad ideas. I was a 20-year old senior at Boston University and working at my first “real job” in a mid size advertising agency in Boston. I was the receptionist but determined to make myself indispensable and prove my ability to contribute to the team. One of our clients was the New England franchisee group of Kentucky Fried Chicken. KFC was introducing hot wings on their menu. We launched a massive in-store campaign touting all the spicy goodness of the wings backed by a very aggressive media plan.

The campaign took off and within a week all KFCs on the east coast had sold out of the wings. Consumers were angry. Our franchisee clients were angry. KFC was scrambling to source more product. It was chaotic. I saw this crisis as an opportunity to step up and possibly save the day. I confidently marched into the office of the agency partners. I told them I had a plan. A plan! We should launch a “hot breasts and thighs” campaign! You know…to use the other parts of the chicken until KFC can figure out their supply chain issues.

My grand idea was met with blank stares and an awkward silence. I was stunned to realize that something that seemed so right in my head sounded like soft-core porn once I said it out loud. I returned to my desk, feeling deflated and a little embarrassed, but to this day, I still think about that incident and embrace creative thinking in all aspects of my life.

---