What can planners learn from…. Race Across the World

At the turn of the millennium, reality television rose to global popularity with shows like Big Brother in the UK and The Amazing Race in the US. In the decades since, it has rapidly expanded and evolved. Whilst many dismiss the genre as "low culture", to dismiss it would be to dismiss its magic.

On a personal level, I find reality TV soothing, shocking and even sublime. From botoxed babes in Beverly Hills, to couples complaining of overcooked steaks in Swansea - I love it all. On a professional level I find great value in the genre too. Emily Nussbaum of The New Yorker describes it perfectly as offering “a powerful glimpse of human vulnerability”. What could be better than absorbing ethnographic insights sprawled across your sofa?

Which takes us to the show of the moment… Race Across the World. Curiously, it took almost 20 years for the UK to adopt the US Amazing Race format, but now firmly in its fifth season 5.9 million people tuned in to watch this season’s opener. The BBC blurb reads “No flights, no phones - and one high-stakes, low-budget race to the finish. On a globe-spanning adventure of a lifetime, which pair will cross the line first?”. Enthrawling stuff.

So what can planners working in the creative industries learn from watching the show?

 Real people are more interesting than celebrities

The UK is famous for its obsession with “celebrity”, from the rag-mags we devour at the dentist, to celebs crawling into our content left right and centre. As our media landscape has fractured, so too has our idea of who counts as a “celebrity”. Shows like Strictly Come Dancing and I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! have made an effort to balance soap stars with influencers, but it’s getting harder to get a roster of nationally “relevant” celebrities.

One of the best things about Race Across the World is the contestants who are likable precisely because they aren’t celebrities. They are fish out of water, shown in an unsanitised and unfiltered light. The format lends itself to moments of vulnerability and charm that would feel disingenuous coming from celebrities. In his column in The Times, Rob Liddle laments reality TV’s reliance on semi-celebs or “slebs” with “fame thinner than the surface tension of water” and admires the contestants in this year’s Race Across the World for being interesting in their own way.

As planners, the show is a reminder that there is beauty in the ordinary. Real people are interesting, textured and nuanced. Celebrities or influencers can never replace creative work informed by true human insight.

Experience beats expediency

In this year’s race, all five pairs start on the Great Wall of China and must find their way to Kanniyakumari on the southern tip of India. How they travel from checkpoint to checkpoint is up to them. The young Welsh couple Fin and Sioned have been prioritising high-speed travel, whereas the older brothers Brian and Melvyn have taken more scenic routes to seek out temples and areas of natural beauty.

Planners can learn a fundamental lesson from the show. It is more important to be interesting than to be correct. The race is at its best in the homestays where we see the warmest moments of human connection, not in the cold efficiency of the railways. Similarly planning is at its best when we slow down to notice things, helping us get to better work rippled through with wit, weirdness and wonder. A ruthless “correct” approach will rarely inspire great creativity.

Get out into the wilderness

In Race Across the World contestants have no phones, with only physical maps, hard cash and their wits. It’s hard to remember being on holiday without the blessing of Google Maps, or any of the other conveniences our phones give us abroad. Yet we watch the show and romanticise the trials and tribulations of an adventure without technological comforts.

As planners, we too need to get out into the real world. Since COVID, most research is done largely online which is more convenient, but it pixelates the details we gain from IRL groups or interviews. My most enlightening moments as a planner have been in non-digital interactions; with farmers in Devon, in living rooms in Manchester and even trawling the streets of London with a cabbie. That’s where the good stuff lies. Perhaps planning departments could set days aside inspired by Race Across the Worlders, where planners go out in pairs and pound the pavements, meeting people and unearthing insight. I guarantee what we find will be far juicier than anything on ChatGPT.

The Race Across the World series finale is on BBC iPlayer on 11 June.