Think Outside The Toast

I only caught this in the aural dusk that is a Youtube video ad interrupting a flow of autoplay in the distance.

Yet it seemed a belter.

From a beans ad. Not just any old beans. No. Baked Beans.

Sold in the gazillions countrywide. Smothered in their tin can by a sauce in that awkward space among a red orange brown. That still now appears to evade the supercomputer wizards of video animation. Unless, of course, they deliberately avoid using such colour out of sacrosanct respect for its 'natural' guise.

Yes, the rest of the world claims as proof of British eccentricity the fact that we alone eat beans on toast.

Not just by the rare few on the odd occasion. But everyone, everywhere across the land, with stunning regularity.

Yes, we devour them. Brought up on them. Likely as our first solid food aged a mere six months. Proceeding to fuel us through our most formative years and beyond. As snack, student dinner, and lunch treat. And all in-between.

Seldom eaten on their own. They feature in the breakfast contribution to world cuisine - for which an entire planet is surely grateful - that is The Full English. Add a dash of Worcestershire Sauce. Or Cheddar. Or bangers. Serve on a baked spud if you like too.

And at pennies per can, a kitchen cupboard staple with superpowers.

Yet the overwhelming presentation is as beans on toast.

Quick, simple, cheap, filling, standard.

Which is why the ad I heard is on to something.

'Think outside the toast' as a slogan sits neatly in that category of brands seeking to instil the ability to use their wares in ways beyond the typical.

By now, it can't have escaped your notice the phrase from which this strap jingles.

Which naturally gets us riffing on where else it might be applied.

Thinking outside the box doggedly remains such a mainstay instruction, no matter how derided.

For box, here read toast.

Surely though, all our prospect worlds have their own box.

Their own toast. Upon which we can help them use an alternative. One offering a whole new way of enjoying life with.

Or at least, solving a sticky issue they may face.

You can even take the most well-known remix as pointer; think inside the box.

Go granular. Reduce the confines of their 'problem' down to its smallest setting. Its tiniest piece of componentry. Its kernel.

If nothing else, it might make for quite the email subject line, 'discovery' type workshopping slide or pre-proposal 'solution' section opener. Just fill in their blank;

Thinking outside the _____