With this Credit Crunch – will we lose all the brilliant ideas?

It’s an issue which I think is going to really change the landscape for the incubation of brilliant ideas. Will VC’s and funds still want to take risks on new bright ideas?

According to Reuters, investors are now switching out of the US not just into BRIC – especially Asia in particular – but into ‘investments of passion’ – namely wine and art.But what about the art of the new big idea? It’s pretty much agreed that big companies rarely have big ideas these days, even though they are still essential and have their place in the fertilisation food chain for entrepreneurs and bright young things.

Will investors now turn off from content, technology, mobile and other new media concepts? If so how soon until we feel the effect of this on our new industries?Perhaps the answer is for business to restart investing in innovation – it’s not just packaged goods companies that should own the new product arena; and a lot of big business seems to exist on ‘if it’s a good idea let’s buy it’ as opposed to creating good ideas inside.

I know we’ve heard it all before, but marketing companies are brilliantly placed to play a part in this. I don’t mean all that nonsense of Crispin taking a steak in a clothing company (that was tiny and largely irrelevant) but actually creating new ideas, new creative business ideas that improve their business whilst innovating and bringing new talent into the business that fundamentally grows clients’ business, not just brand awareness.

I’m bored of hearing about how advertising agencies are changing their relationship with clients to share equity – I think that’s all posturing. It would be good to see agencies work with start-ups, new businesses and entrepreneurs to create new ideas that connect in new ways.

I recall working with a global ad agency on a pitch recently. I told them explicitly that their potential client wanted ’skin in the game’ — I was told ‘oh yes, we’ll absolutely bet a bit of the farm on our work’, only to hear that they considered a fee penalty of 1 or 2 per cent as being ’skin in the game’.

Entrepreneurs and start-ups bet 100% of their livelihood and their passion on trying to advance business, technology and ideas; it’s time the marketing industry played their part. It’s not entirely altruistic; it’s actually quite old-fashioned.

The agency world is changing blah blah blah – but with only about 6 per cent of total ad revenue coming from online, it’s clear there’s a lot of space to change and evolve. Never mind online – look at how hard it is for Facebook to monetize; and I watched Mark Z present Beacon and Social Ads — never before was a group of media and stakeholders so neutral about a great concept with lousy execution.

But what about mobile? the iPhone is changing our relationship with those noisy interruptive handsets into a device that adds new value (and eyeballs and time) to business and brands that crave attention. And in this economic climate pushing a channel that consumers are addicted to, is in their pocket all day and is still relatively inexpensive and yet highly responsive could be the way to grow new ideas in a ’safe growth’ environment.

If you want to see successful User Generated Content from a subscriber base – well, what the hell is a mobile phone?Mobile has so far to grow in the US; I know this as I watched in grow first hand in Europe when I was running an agency there. I think the new colonisation for content ideas could be real and credible investment and ownership in this technology area. I’m reminded of when I was in London and FCB had loaned their basement to start-ups and smart ideas, I don’t think it came to much.

That was a concept whose time has come; now that’s worth a glass of wine.