There are two words that strike more fear in a creative team than a budget spreadsheet. ‘Been done’ is the hardest thing for a creative team to hear when presenting ideas and the easiest thing for a creative director to say. If you’re a CD, take a left off Easy Street and take a stroll down the Walk of What If. If the idea is relevant, build on it, make it radical. Interrogate the proposal to help find a creative twist and most importantly, make it better.

Stanley Kubrick said it best: “Everything has already been done, every story has been told, every scene has been shot. It’s our job to do it better.” Alexander McQueen went further: “Everything’s been done, everything is a remix.” Fashion, art, cinema, music, literature, video games and yes, advertising; everything has been done, everything is a remix of what’s come before. Nothing is immune.

Even the world’s most famous meme is recycled, century-old content. The ‘distracted boyfriend’ meme is a remix of a concept that first hit our slightly larger screens in 1922. In Pay Day, Charlie Chaplin plays the role of a somewhat ‘distracted Charlie’. Imagine if, when the modern version was created, someone leant over and muttered the ‘been done’ death knell. Distracted? Furious, more like.