@flutherother I think we are struggling with answering the question here because there are very few people who have a futuristic thought process and gravitate towards marketing/advertising. In my book, futuristic means thinking outside of the box…something brand new. Ideation, again in my book, means to connect two completely different ideas and putting them together for a new concept.
Here is an example. A futuristic idea is the first person to look at the moon and think, “We need to go there.” Someone who has Ideation thinks, “Hmm, we travel under water in a submarine…why not create one to travel to the moon?”
@flutherother‘s church suggestions are forms of Ideation. Stained glass and pictures in books/magazines already exist. Yet using them for advertising in churches doesn’t, as far as I know.
Another example is bar codes. I was around when they were invented. They were on food labels long before all stores signed up for using them. Now they are used for advertising in magazines. I recently downloaded an app. on my iPad to read the little boxes printed on ads. That’s daggone innovative, but not futuristic.
When it comes to advertising, it’s just plain difficult, at least for me, to think up ideas without the technology having been created. Otherwise, it just comes down to listening to what the targeted audience really wants.