May 12, 2022 • 1HR 8M

Dave Trott on rebels and rejects

Pearls of wisdom from an advertising legend

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Daniel Ross
Interviews with the experts, entertainers and academics in the weird, wonderful and creative world of behavioural science.
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Introducing Dave Trott

Today, we're revisiting what creativity is, and how to express it and find it, with a legend of the advertising industry Dave Trott. Just as John Cleese wrote brilliant sitcom and sketches, Dave created brilliant advertising over a career in which he founded five agencies including Gold Greenlees Trott, Bainsfair Sharkey Trott and Chick Smith Trott.

What you're going to love about this conversation is Dave's to the point, sharp witted, no BS worldview. David Ogilvy’s greatest creation is David Ogilvy he says while his real heroes are Bill Bernbach, John Webster and Edward de Bono.

Show notes

  • Conditions for creative outcomes & Edward de Bono

  • No creativity in art galleries

  • Dead art and waffle

  • Talent in the ad industry: putting perfume on a bad smell

  • Why people in advertising refuse to study the past

  • Mike Yershon’s genius putting football on TV

  • 90% people are stupid, including the clients

  • Serendipity & how to build in mistakes

  • Learning from football managers

  • Rebels and rejects

  • You can learn talent but not attitude

  • Selling tampons to lorry drivers

  • Reversing a problem, getting upstream of a problem

  • Ads want to make you love the brand, not change purchasing habits

  • The nonsense of ad awards: once a metric becomes a target, it ceases to have any use as a metric

  • Best clients to work with are those in trouble: the clarity of desperation (George Washington)

  • Digital advertising: efficiency vs. effectiveness

  • David Ogilvy’s greatest creation is David Ogilvy

  • Bill Bernbach, Avis and making a virtue out of a weakness

  • You don’t have to like the advertising for it to work

Next time with Sir Martin Sorrell

On the next instalment of A Load of BS, I'm staying in ad land in conversation with Sir Martin Sorrell, founder and CEO of WPP and now the fast expanding S4 Capital. We'll be talking about his big influences, big deal making, big data and motivation for doing it all again.

Be well and till next time,

Daniel

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