Dave Trott > Quotes

“If you avoid the rejection, you avoid the opportunity.”
― Dave Trott, Predatory Thinking: A Masterclass in Out-thinking the Competition

“Efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things.”
― Dave Trott, Predatory Thinking: A Masterclass in Out-thinking the Competition

“As the philosopher Bertrand Russell said, ‘The problem with the world is that the ignorant are arrogant and cocksure, while the intelligent are full of doubt.’ Because thinking is more difficult once we realise there is no right or wrong. Just the same thing viewed from different perspectives.”
― Dave Trott, Predatory Thinking: A Masterclass in Out-thinking the Competition

“One of the best advertising people ever was Carl Ally. He said the true creative person wants to be a know-it-all. They want to know about all kinds of things: ancient history, nineteenth-century mathematics, modern manufacturing techniques, flower arranging, and lean hog futures. Because they never know when these ideas might come together to form a new idea. It may happen six minutes later or six years down the road, but they know it will happen.”
― Dave Trott, One Plus One Equals Three: A Masterclass in Creative Thinking

“We can’t believe the world isn’t exactly the same way for everyone else, as it is for us. But the truth is, you only know what you know.”
― Dave Trott, Predatory Thinking: A Masterclass in Out-thinking the Competition

“The product creates the experience. The experience creates the reputation. The reputation creates the brand.”
― Dave Trott, One Plus One Equals Three: A Masterclass in Creative Thinking

“According to the laws of aerodynamics the bumblebee can’t fly. But the bumblebee doesn’t know that, so it just carries on flying around.”
― Dave Trott, One Plus One Equals Three: A Masterclass in Creative Thinking

“No wonder men had more power. They had more power because they didn’t ask anyone else’s permission. They just went ahead and did what they wanted. And they weren’t as scared of being wrong as the women were. For them, getting the result was more important than being right.”
― Dave Trott, One Plus One Equals Three: A Masterclass in Creative Thinking

“I also like what Voltaire said about the English. ‘The English are like their own beer: the dregs are at the bottom, the top is nothing but froth, but the middle is quite excellent.”
― Dave Trott, One Plus One Equals Three: A Masterclass in Creative Thinking

“Brand is another word for reputation or image. And you don’t get a reputation just by claiming something.”
― Dave Trott, One Plus One Equals Three: A Masterclass in Creative Thinking

“There was nothing there except some woods with a lunatic asylum and a graveyard in the middle.”
― Dave Trott, One Plus One Equals Three: A Masterclass in Creative Thinking

“Less important points don’t add to the communication. They detract from the most important point. That’s what the single-minded proposition is all about.”
― Dave Trott, Predatory Thinking: A Masterclass in Out-thinking the Competition

“Orson Welles summed it up best in The Third Man. ‘In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
― Dave Trott, One Plus One Equals Three: A Masterclass in Creative Thinking

“As the author Anaïs Nin said, ‘We see things not as they are, but as we are.”
― Dave Trott, Predatory Thinking: A Masterclass in Out-thinking the Competition

“Every week they would have one hour scheduled, sitting quietly at their desk. Learning to be alone with their thoughts. Learning to be comfortable with themselves. Learning it was OK to be silent. How great is that?”
― Dave Trott, Predatory Thinking: A Masterclass in Out-thinking the Competition

“We don’t keep competing inside a competitive set where we can’t win. We change the competitive set, change the perspective.”
― Dave Trott, Creative Blindness (And How To Cure It): Real-life stories of remarkable creative vision

“So if we can find a natural rebelliousness within ourselves (and presumably that’s why we went to art school), if we can harness that, we have an energy that we can turn into something useful. Something exciting and different. We can be outrageous to a purpose. That, for me, is great advertising.”
― Dave Trott, Creative Mischief

“What works is being different. Don’t try to be liked. Find out how you’re different. Then be that. That’s where the power is. That’s what’s new. That’s what’s wanted.”
― Dave Trott, Predatory Thinking: A Masterclass in Out-thinking the Competition

“Welding a JCB to a Ferrari doesn’t make a machine that can dig roads at 200 mph. It makes something that can’t do either job properly.”
― Dave Trott, Predatory Thinking: A Masterclass in Out-thinking the Competition

“Nothing can harm a man so much as his own thoughts untamed.”
― Dave Trott, One Plus One Equals Three: A Masterclass in Creative Thinking

“The more varied the input, the more unexpected the combinations, the more creative the ideas.”
― Dave Trott, One Plus One Equals Three: A Masterclass in Creative Thinking

“Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, had a similar view. He didn’t believe in research. He said, ‘It’s not the public’s job to know what they’re going to want. It’s my job to know what they’re going to want.”
― Dave Trott, Predatory Thinking: A Masterclass in Out-thinking the Competition

“People love to believe wine is esoteric, so the more inscrutable he could make it, the better.”
― Dave Trott, Crossover Creativity: Real-life stories about where creativity comes from

“As Churchill said, “Never let the truth spoil a good story.”
― Dave Trott, Creative Mischief

“What gets action is what gets attention. What gets attention is what gets seen. So being visible, being impactful, is the most important part of any communication designed to change behaviour.”
― Dave Trott, Creative Blindness (And How To Cure It): Real-life stories of remarkable creative vision

“Don’t try to force or nag people into doing what you want. Accept that they are free to choose. But you help them choose what you want.”
― Dave Trott, One Plus One Equals Three: A Masterclass in Creative Thinking

“No TV, no radio, no press ads, no posters. We found one thing that the banks are full of, that could be changed into media. Paper money. We got small printing kits from Ryman and printed: ‘STOP BANKS KILLING CHILDREN. CANCEL THE THIRD WORLD DEBT’ on every bank note we could get hold of.”
― Dave Trott, Predatory Thinking: A Masterclass in Out-thinking the Competition

“As the economist J.M. Keynes said: “The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas, as in escaping from the old ones.”
― Dave Trott, Creative Blindness (And How To Cure It): Real-life stories of remarkable creative vision

“Geffen is now worth around $6 billion.

Not by being better, or tougher, or faster, or smarter, or richer, or better educated than other people.

Not by trying to beat other people at their own game.
But by looking at other people and thinking, ‘What aren’t they doing?”
― Dave Trott, One Plus One Equals Three: A Masterclass in Creative Thinking

“Our whole world is advertising, so we think everyone’s whole world is advertising. That’s why so many of us are so bad at it. We don’t think it’s our job to talk to people outside advertising. We think it’s their job to pay attention to us.”
― Dave Trott, Predatory Thinking: A Masterclass in Out-thinking the Competition