The Master Guide / 03 Concepts and references · The idea

Ranking, and the originality check

Rank what survived. Then make sure the top five haven't been made before.

Pass 2 ranks the survivors [proven] on six questions, in this order of weight:

Is it new? Would a jury wish it had done it?
Is it driven by the insight?
Can it be made brilliantly with these tools?
Does it fit the objective, the audience, the channel and the length?
Does it move people: living characters, a turn, humour or melody?
Is it simple: one idea, few elements, culture as the foundation rather than decoration?

Check originality on the top five [proven] for the method; the time is a guide.

Search by the idea's mechanism and its key image, not only by brand or category, for about 30 minutes per idea: the Cannes Lions and Dubai Lynx winners lists, the D&AD archive, the One Show archive, Ads of the World, Joe La Pompe, and the open web, with Arabic-language searches for regional work. The full Cannes Lions archive is paid.
Label every find:

Label	Means	What you do
Same idea	The same mechanism for the same kind of message	Drop the idea, or write one line on the clear difference and sign it off yourself before anyone develops it
Same mechanism	The device used elsewhere, for another message or category	Keep it; note what makes yours different
Same feeling	Tone or emotion only	Keep it as a tone reference

Log each find in your reference library with its label (see References → The reference breakdown). A shared surface element, such as a typeface, an animal or one word, is not copying.
Award ideas that use AI count here and in the idea bar at the idea level only (decided; see References → What counts).
Same-idea finds never appear in the client deck.

Originality is a creative check only. There is no rights, release or consent step on references (decided).

The ranking questions draw on the D&AD, Cannes Lions, Dubai Lynx and Effie criteria; the archives named in this topic are where to search.