The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

Of course, Martin, Paula and I talked about this back in 2023 at Cannes with our Strategy Is Constipated, Imagination Is The Laxative talk, but the reality is imagination is more than just a topic for consideration, it’s a muscle that needs exercising every day and needs rigor to enable it to reveal where its capable of going.

The good news is it’s easy to do if you put your mind to it, which is why one of the things I tell junior planners to do is to always look for the unintended stories that surround us.

It might be in a cafe.
It might be at a bus stop.
It might be a coffee cup on the street.

But the point is, look for things that allow you to imagine the stories or situations that led to what you see in front of your face.

Now I should point out that I may have stolen this from the great Russell Davies … but even now I still do it because when it comes to writing briefs, it helps me imagine where it could go before logic tries to dictate where I have to take it.

Recently I was out for a walk when I saw this …

On one hand, they’re just 2 kids shoes on a pavement.

Maybe lost as their parent pushed them along in their pram.

But there’s a whole lot of other stories that could be made from them.

Full of light or full of darkness.

For me, the first place they took me to was dark.

There was something about their placement and context that felt so unnatural that it suggests something bad has happened.

The shoes are too far apart, yet facing each other rather than pointing in the same direction.
They’re on a suburban street. On a Tuesday lunchtime. Yet no one is around and all is quiet.
Then there’s the fact both shoes are missing. One makes more sense … but both?

It all felt like the opening scene of a British Police drama.

Now of course there’s an alternative storyline … one filled with joy and effervescence.

A celebration of a kid being allowed to truly be a kid.

But wherever I could take it, it is much more than simply 2 shoes on the street and yet so often, we spend our time looking at briefs through the lens of the research, the focus groups, the competition. Stuff that confines our imagination to exist – at best – in a small corner.

Which is why if you want to grow your skills, stop blindly following the [financially self-serving and ego fulfilling] rules of Ritson, Cole and co and put more energy and effort into noticing and exploring what is around you. Because while the ‘lessons for profit’ crew will tell you what you should do [and just for the record, I do appreciate their experience and perspective, especially in terms of learning important rules in the fundamentals of marketing strategy] … it’s the street that will help reveal where you could go.