How to Generate Ideas with the SCAMPER Technique

[Music] hello day dreamers I'm Michael with bizarre design lab and today I'm using one of my favorite foods in existence to show you how ideas are generated using the scamper technique let's do it Oh taker hello Michael it looks like you have a new assignment to review I guess so it's from the small town peanut butter company dear Michael we would like for you to help us discover an innovative and unusual new way to promote our peanut butter product it's nuts do you accept this assignment small-town peanut butter company assignment accepted hey tinker yes how

can I help this assignment will require us to peer outside of our conventional understanding of our clients product and imagine something new do we have a concept generation tool for this as a matter of fact we do the scamper technique is exactly the tool you are looking for tinker as always you've been most helpful scamper is an acronym with seven letters each letter gives us a unique technique that will help us imagine our product from innovative and sometimes downright ridiculous perspectives the first letter in scamper is s which stands for substitute look at the components

that make up your product replace or substitute one part for something else in our example we're going to consider replacing peanuts the main ingredient in our product with almonds instead the second letter C stands for combine is there anything we can combine with our product to make it more attractive or efficient to the end-user peanut butter and jelly have a long-standing reputation as one of the greatest food mash-ups place in between two slices of bread and a satisfyingly sweet sandwich awaits you the third letter a is for adapt this is probably the trickiest technique of

the seven is there a way we can adapt our product to external stimuli or to an industry demand how about a healthier low-fat option anybody feeling like powdered peanut butter suit yourself next letters m4 modify let's increase the size of the container for large families or maybe we can minimize the container to accommodate those who want peanut butter on the go next we come to the letter P for put to another use in what ways can we use peanut butter differently than it was intended we can bake cookies with it combine it with a pine

cone to make a hanging bird feeder did you know that you could shave with peanut butter I'm really liking some of the ideas I'm getting with that concept next up is the letter e for eliminate is there elements that we could eliminate to increase efficiency or reduce waste I could eliminate the traditional method of spreading peanut butter on bread and just eat it directly with a fork maybe I could eliminate the product itself and use the jar for storing nuts and bolts oK we've come to the last letter R for a reverse this is where

we flipped the direction of the product or process in hopes of seeing it from a different perspective what if instead of spreading the peanut butter on bread we toasted the bread and dipped it in the jar or what if we changed the threads on the lid so it screws on clockwise instead imagine your child's surprise when they can't seem to open the peanut butter jar well Billy your mom did tell you to ask first now that we have a handful of ideas here we can select the one that's most relevant to our assignment and begin

laying out concept sketches for our ad revising these until we're satisfied with the placement of the elements and rendering our chosen concept in our vector drawing program of choice [Music] I chose to go with the idea of using peanut butter to shave with so I can give our client the unusual innovative advertisement that they were looking for [Music] this included a fun retro style graphic in a play on words with the title to include the name of the product [Music] [Music] [Music] click the thumbs up button if you've ever eaten peanut butter out of the

jar or because you liked this video [Music] I hope you enjoyed how I use scamper to work a design concept through to completion let's recap on what we learned S stands for substitute replace or substitute one component for another c is for combine combine two or more elements into one a is for adapt let's cause the main elements to adapt to external stimuli or an industry demand M is for modify how are we changing the size or properties of the initial concept P is for put to other use how can we use the elements in

different ways e is for eliminate let's eliminate elements to see how it affects our concept and r is for reverse we're flipping things around to see them differently when I need to come up with a concept for a project I love to be able to get to a resource like scamper quickly and easily that's why I've designed the scamper wall graphic you can add to your workstation so that you always have a visual reminder when you're trying to come up with the concept for your next project order one for yourself using the link in the

description below so there you go seven techniques tucked into a simple acronym that will help you to step out of the box and see things in ways you would never have thought of if you like this video please do click that thumbs up if you want to join the tribe please click subscribe hey I'll see you in the next video toodles [Music]