Good ideas are worth their weight in gold

Written by

Rik Mulder

Co-founder

Updates • 12 August 2026

Home / Good ideas are worth their weight in gold

Anyone who bought gold twenty years ago probably doesn't regret it. Not because there haven't been any dips along the way, but simply because gold has a curious reputation. Gold is scarce and tangible, and we more or less all agree that it represents value. The latter is interesting.

Because ultimately the value of gold is also to a large extent a social construct. We trust that someone will still want to pay something for it in ten or twenty years“ time. It is precisely for this reason that people dare to hold onto it. Value creation in companies sometimes works in a surprisingly similar way. Except that there, gold can sometimes ”just” be a good idea. Those, too, rarely become valuable overnight.

A name that is still recognised after years. A positioning that gives a company a clear place in the market. A campaign line that becomes part of customers' everyday language. A design that lasts for years without feeling dated.

That sort of thing rarely stems from the question: what will this yield next month?

We've become rather impatient

That is perhaps also the strange thing about how companies look at marketing nowadays. Virtually everything has to be measurable, and preferably quickly. A campaign is launched and after a few weeks we look at the cost per lead. A website is revamped and almost immediately the conversion rate has to go up. A LinkedIn post that barely gets any reach is quickly considered a failure.

There is nothing inherently wrong with that. Naturally, you want to know if an investment pays off. But not every value shows itself within thirty days. A brand least of all.

Anyone who judges every idea solely on direct revenue runs the risk of mostly doing things that work in the short term. A discount. An advert. An extra mailing.
And sometimes that is precisely what is needed. Only you don't automatically build something with that which will be worth more in five years than it is today.

A watch that mainly tells the time

Take a Rolex. From a functional point of view, it’s a rather remarkable product. For a fraction of the price, you can buy a watch that tells the time just as accurately. Your phone even does it for free. Yet Rolex is one of the best-known watch brands in the world. So that value doesn’t lie solely in the product itself. It lies in decades of choices: in design; in distribution; in sponsorship; in storytelling; and in the conscious decision not to be for everyone. None of those decisions would have made a difference on its own. But taken together, they have built something that is difficult to replicate. And that is perhaps the interesting thing about brand value: every good choice can reinforce the one before it. A recognisable identity makes the next campaign more recognisable. Sharp positioning makes a message clearer. A good story gives new products a head start. Over time, this creates something that resembles a return on investment.

Not every good idea is immediately gold

Of course, that doesn't make a creative idea a safe investment. There are plenty of bad slogans, incomprehensible rebrandings, and costly campaigns that no one remembers a year later.

The difference probably lies not just in the idea itself, but above all in what you do with it. An idea only gains value when an organisation is prepared to implement it consistently – when it isn’t discarded after three months simply because yet another new trend has come along – and when strategy, design and communication continue to reinforce one another.

That requires patience. And that is regularly where the shoe pinches. You can put a machine on the balance sheet. We know the depreciation of a company car. With software, we can calculate relatively easily how many hours are saved with it. But what is a better reputation worth? What does recognition yield? What is the financial effect when customers trust you sooner than a competitor?

That is harder to capture in a spreadsheet. It does not mean that value is not there.

The investment behind the investment

Perhaps that is why companies should look a little differently at creative investments. A new website is not just an investment in online visibility. A new identity is not just an investment in colours, type and a logo. And a campaign is not just the media budget spent on it.

The most important investment often lies in the idea that precedes it. What do we actually want to stand for? Why would someone choose us? What do we want to be known for in five years' time?

These are questions whose answers won’t appear in your bank account tomorrow. But they do determine just how much impact virtually everything that follows might have. And in that sense, good ideas are perhaps a bit like gold after all. You only realise later just how much they were really worth.

Do you have gold in your hands?

Perhaps there’s already an idea within your organisation that deserves more attention. Or perhaps what’s needed is a fresh perspective on the brand, its positioning or the way you present yourselves to the outside world. And sometimes, with a bit of luck, things really do work out.

Because everyone naturally wants that single golden ticket to success. An idea that lands at just the right moment, a campaign that suddenly takes off or a brand that keeps growing for years. We actually only know of one that literally had that luck: Sjaakie

Therefore, we have our own golden ticket. Claim one of our chocolate bars and see if you are the lucky one. Is the golden ticket in your bar? Then you will win a brainstorming session with BRANDBITS® in which we will explore together which idea could be worth its weight in gold for your organisation.

Maybe the success isn't in the chocolate. But rather in the idea that stems from it.