CourseLesson 8 of 8Your Turn: Map Your Soup and Go Beyond the Brief0%
Lesson 8 of 8Your Turn: Map Your Soup and Go Beyond the Brief
Lesson 08·Beyond the Brief: Jimmy Smith's Masterclass in Creative Thinking
Your Turn: Map Your Soup and Go Beyond the Brief
This is where Jimmy's philosophy becomes your practice. In this hands-on exercise, you'll map your own creative soup, identify your personal legends, and then take a real brief and push it beyond its limits — finding the biggest possible idea hiding inside it.
Taught by
Jimmy Smith· Chairman, CEO & CCO | Amusement Park Entertainment | Cultural Storytelling & Big Idea Evangelist
Exercise
15 min read
Your Turn: Map Your Soup and Go Beyond the Brief
Jimmy has shown you his soup. He's walked you through his legends. He's taken you inside the briefs that became books, video games, TV shows, and cultural moments. Now it's your turn to do the work.
This final exercise is where philosophy becomes practice. You're going to map your own creative soup, build your personal legends list, and then take a real brief and push it until you find the biggest idea hiding inside it.
This is the first rep. The more you do it, the stronger you get.
Setup
You'll need:
A notebook or blank document — something you can write freely in
A real brief you're currently working on (or a recent one you know well)
About 60–90 minutes of uninterrupted time
Honesty. This only works if you go deep.
Instructions
Part 1: Map Your Creative Soup (20 minutes)
Your soup is everything that made you you — before advertising, before briefs, before strategy decks. Jimmy's had Silver Surfer comics, Parliament Funkadelic albums, Led Zeppelin, James Brown, Walt Disney, and a childhood spent between two worlds. Yours is different. That's the point.
Write freely and answer these questions:
Where did you grow up, and what was unusual or specific about that place?
What music, movies, books, or TV shows shaped how you see the world?
What subcultures, communities, or worlds have you moved between?
What did you obsess over as a kid that had nothing to do with school?
What experiences — good, painful, strange — gave you a perspective most people in your industry don't have?
Don't edit. Don't judge. Just pour it out. The goal is to see the full inventory of what you're carrying. Most creatives have been sitting on a goldmine they've never named.
Part 2: Write Your Legends List (15 minutes)
Jimmy studied Bill Bernbach. He cold-called Lee Clow. He tracked down the people who were doing the thing he wanted to do and made them his north stars.
Your legends list is the people — in advertising and outside it — whose work raises your standard and expands your sense of what's possible.
Write down:
5 people in advertising or design whose work genuinely moves you and why
5 people outside advertising — artists, athletes, directors, musicians, writers — whose creative courage you want to bring into your work
For each name, write one sentence: What does this person give me permission to do?
This list is a living document. It should grow throughout your career. Come back to it when you're stuck, when you're playing it safe, when you need to remember what bold looks like.
Part 3: Go Beyond the Brief (30 minutes)
Take your real brief and put it in front of you. Now ask the questions Jimmy's career was built on:
What does the brief literally ask for? Write it down in one sentence.
What does the brand actually need? Go one level deeper. What's the real problem or opportunity?
What's the biggest possible idea here? Not the safest execution — the biggest idea. The one that could be a book, a movement, a cultural moment, not just a campaign.
What does your soup bring to this? Look back at Part 1. What's in your specific mix of experiences, references, and perspectives that nobody else in the room has? How does that change the idea?
What would you pitch if you weren't afraid? Write that idea down. All of it.
Expected Outcome
By the end of this exercise, you'll have three things:
A creative soup map — a written inventory of the experiences, influences, and perspectives that make your creative voice unique. Most people have never articulated this. You now have.
A personal legends list — a living document of the people whose work raises your standard. This becomes a resource you return to throughout your career.
A beyond-the-brief idea — a bigger, braver version of something you're actually working on. It might not be the idea that gets approved tomorrow. But it's the idea that shows you what's possible — and it's the muscle you'll keep building every time you do this.
Jimmy didn't become Jimmy by playing it safe inside the lines of what was asked. He became Jimmy by bringing his full soup, his full self, and his full courage to every problem — and then going further than anyone expected.
Now you know how. Go do it.
Exercise0 / 5 steps
1
Map Your Creative Soup. List 5-10 cultural influences that have shaped how you see the world and think creatively. These can be music, films, books, places, people, subcultures, hobbies — anything that has genuinely marked you. Don't edit yourself. The more unexpected and contradictory, the better. For each one, write one sentence about what it gave you creatively.
2
Build Your Legends List. Identify 5 creative legends you will study obsessively — at least 2 from advertising and at least 2 from outside advertising (music, film, design, literature, comedy, whatever moves you). For each legend, write one sentence about what specifically you want to learn from their work.
3
Read the Brief. Here is your brief: A mid-sized athletic footwear brand wants to launch a new running shoe targeted at urban runners aged 25-40. Budget is moderate. They want social media ads and a hero video.
Before you go beyond it, write down what the obvious, expected response to this brief looks like in 2-3 sentences. Be honest — what would most agencies produce?
4
Go Beyond the Brief. Now apply Jimmy's philosophy. Ask yourself: what's the biggest possible idea hiding inside this brief? It doesn't have to be an ad. It could be a book, an event, a community, a movement, a piece of entertainment. Draw on your soup — what unique cultural perspective do you bring to urban running? Write your 'beyond the brief' idea in a paragraph. Give it a name.
5
Reflect. In 2-3 sentences, describe how your soup — the influences you mapped in Step 1 — shaped the 'beyond the brief' idea you developed in Step 4. What specifically from your creative identity made this idea yours and not someone else's?
Practice Lab
Build a creative brief
The most important document in advertising. Give it a few inputs and watch the Big Idea framework take shape — right here, no account needed.
Key Takeaways
Your creative soup is unique and specific — mapping it reveals the creative assets you've been carrying without knowing it
Your personal legends list is a living document — it should grow and evolve throughout your career
Every brief contains a bigger idea — the discipline is learning to find it and be brave enough to articulate it
Going beyond the brief is a skill that improves with practice — this exercise is the first rep
The most original creative work comes from bringing your full self — your soup, your legends, your courage — to every problem
Features Covered
Idea SessionsBrief BuilderAd StrategistIdea JudgeIdea Remix
Frequently Asked Questions
The exercise provides a sample brief to work with, but you're encouraged to use a real brief from your own work if you have one. The more real the brief, the more useful the exercise.
It doesn't need to be fully developed — a paragraph or two that captures the essence of the bigger idea is enough. The goal is to practice the thinking, not to produce a finished campaign.
Academy
Ready to move on?
Mark this lesson complete to track your progress
Your next move
You've learned how the legends think. Now go make it.
Everything you just practiced — the briefs, the ideas — runs for real inside Ad Legends, on your own brand, with the same legendary thinking built in. Open a free account and put it to work.
