Bursting your bubble: How TMW's Dan Bowers keeps the mind ticking

It's good to chat

For me, planning is not a solo pursuit, it's a team sport. It’s about embracing different perspectives, road-testing hypotheses, and sharing my thinking way too early, however vulnerable that might make me feel.

My first and very favourite planning boss (he knows who he is) advised me to talk about a brief as soon as possible.

“The earlier you talk about the client brief, the better the creative brief”, he said. Don’t underestimate the power of simply saying something out loud and listening to the reaction. Talking activates new pathways in your brain and invites fresh perspectives. It’s worth doing, even if it feels like your time would be better spent reading a report.

Take time to talk to your audience, your colleagues, your friends, your partner, and even your auntie Jean, arguably – there is no better inspiration.

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.

Challenge your bubble

The world is pretty nuts, so I understand the comfort of getting all snuggly in your filter bubble. You’re great. We’re great. Everyone’s great.

We’re all agreeing with each other, but we are missing a vital part of the equation: What’s everyone else thinking and feeling?

It’s a potential blind spot for planners. It’s a blind spot for a lot of advertising. I force myself to break my comfort-bubble, by embracing unexpected things that don’t meet my tastes or worldview, whether that is reading The Daily Mail, listening to an Andrew Tate interview (yuck), jigging along to mumble rap, or watching Love Island.

It’s hard to do because it's counterintuitive, but by embracing things you fundamentally don’t like or agree with, you'll challenge yourself to think and grow in new ways.

Dan Bowers is CSO at TMW Unlimited