Best Of Brain Food 2024

What inspires the sharpest minds in advertising? 'Brain Food is all about uncovering the influences that fuel the industry’s top strategists. Since its launch earlier this year, Creative Salon has asked these leaders to share three defining sources of inspiration—whether it’s a book, a habit, or an unexpected spark. These stories offer a peek into how strategists stay ahead, navigating an industry that’s always shifting and evolving.

Now, let’s take a look back at some of the best moments from Brain Food in 2024.

Harjot Singh, CSO, McCann Worldgroup

An Aimless Walk

Going out for an aimless walk is a deceptively simple act, often overlooked in its potential to inspire. But to walk aimlessly is to engage with the world in a way that is both intimate and expansive, a form of exploration that opens the door to observation, and reflection – sparking ideas, evoking memories, or simply providing a moment of clarity. It just sharpens the senses.

I find that the inspiration in walking aimlessly, lies in its ability to recalibrate the mind. The mind, no longer tethered to a desk or a screen, begins to wander freely, much like the path one takes. There is something inherently liberating about this—an invitation to let go of the structured, goal-oriented thinking that tends to dominate so much of what we do, and instead embrace a more fluid, organic process of thought.

But perhaps the most profound inspiration drawn from walking aimlessly is the way it mirrors the creative process itself.  An aimless walk unfolds step by step, without necessarily knowing the destination, a journey, sometimes uncertain, sometimes meandering, but always leading somewhere—perhaps to a place you never expected, a new perspective, or a deeper understanding. For me, inspiration lives in the very act of moving forward, one step at a time which is exactly what an “aimless walk” is all about.

Read the full article here.

Chris Turner, Planning Director, Pablo

Street photography: Taking notice of the overlooked

“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.” A beautiful quotation from a fantastic photographer, Dorothea Lange, which resonates with me.

Keen observation skills are a strategist's best friend, and a camera is a great tool to hone that skill. It gives you licence to go out into the world, go down streets you would never normally go down, look up, and spend time amongst people going about their lives; all in the pursuit of a fleeting moment that perhaps reveals something about what it means to be human.

How someone may display status:

How we may show tenderness to one another:

Or a chance encounter that perhaps reveals our national obsession with dogs:

As a photographer you are analysing the vast data of life and it is up to you to decide what to frame, what to exclude, what to highlight, what is important and what is superfluous. In that way, it is very much like what we do as strategists.

Read the full article here.

Anna Green, Senior Strategist, FCB London

Getting outside

Like everyone else, I took up gardening during lockdown. I find pottering around outside gives any bubbling thoughts a chance to breathe. Getting my hands dirty in the garden or nipping round the block at lunchtime always brings me something that I can take back inside to my desk.

Read the full article here.

Tim Whirledge, Strategy Partner, Dentsu Creative UK

My Barber Stu

Been going to him for years. He’s a switched on type who is always ready to go deep on the way the world is going but interestingly for our purposes, he’s my informant as to what his other patrons are talking about getting me out of my own filter bubble. I see him once a month (though disappointingly for me I might have to top up my hair care regimen with a “hair holiday”) and I always leave with a fresh insight or two.

Read the full article here.

Matt Holt, CSO, Digitas

Play

Running, sprinting and exercising – whenever I get stuck on anything, I go for a run. Physical energy creates mental energy. Often, I’ll return from a run and rush to get a pencil to scribble down my thoughts. It works every time. It’s almost a cheat code for inspiration for me. While I am a (now ageing) sprinter by trade, I took up longer distance running to get out of the house during the lockdowns. I’ve even run a few half marathons. It’s been great for physical and mental health, and for tackling those tough problems you sometimes feel you won’t be able to crack.

Read the full article here.

Flora Proudlock, Strategy Director, St Luke's

Kids’ books inspire me with their simplicity

When I was starting out, a CSO said something that has always stayed with me: “The French Revolution summarised its beliefs in three words - liberté, égalité, fraternité - and yet it takes us twice as many to sell a tin of pet food!” It’s not easy to make a smart strategy feel simple. It’s a skill, so I’m always curious about different people from different disciplines who have mastered the knack of distilling complex ideas effortlessly. Whether you have kids or not, I recommend opening a kids' book. The good ones tackle vast, complex themes - faith, race, war, bullying, single-parent families, neurodivergence - and manage to boil them down into beautifully simple ideas. I recently had a brief with the theme of authenticity at its heart, and a one-liner from Rob Biddulph's "Odd Dog Out" inspired the mother of all territories.

Read the full article here.

Ben Shaw, CSO, Mullen Lowe

Bo Burnham’s ‘Inside’

A tour de force of what a single person can achieve in a single room with a camera and a keyboard.

I go back to the album every month and it astounds me with the creativity, self-aware cynicism and production values.

He manages to blend a point of view with his own personal truth, all whilst staying outrageously funny and producing great music.

A must watch.

Read the full article here.

Dan Bowers, CSO, TMW Unlimited

Truth is all around

Sure, there’s bags of inspiration to be found behind a screen. Current affairs, the latest box set, unmissable cultural events and mildly amusing memes. Having all this stuff at my fingertips helps me keep up the illusion of knowing what’s up and what’s going on.  But, and it’s a big hairy but (as my daughter’s primary school teacher says), a lot of this is surface level.

Planning is about finding deeper human truths.  Truths that sometimes can only be found in the real world. So, I urge you to look up and closely observe the people and places around you. Without being creepy, listen to people around you. There’s such a raw truth in observing unfiltered interactions. What do people love?

What do they hate? Pay special attention of physical spaces. What’s being advertised on pub blackboards? What’s written on toilet walls? What is street art and graffiti trying to convey? There’s such honesty and truthfulness to be found by looking at the people and places around you. It’s also great for your mental health too.

Read the full article here.

Andrew Lopez, head of strategy UK, Weber Shandwick
Take the headphones off

This is a bit of an obvious one but massively, massively valuable.

So often now when we are on the move, we are shutting out the world around us.  Another podcast to try, another playlist to listen to, another tv show to catch up on, peering down at our phones.

Stopping all of that and just tuning in to what is going on around you can be far more entertaining and occasionally even useful. Hearing what people are talking to their mates about and even just the way people speak can be far more interesting, and useful.

Usual warnings with this one in ensuring you don’t come across as some kind of strange snooping weirdo though.

Read the full article here.

If you enjoyed this taster, you can find the full articles right here or below.