#DaveTrott

THE PLOUGHMAN’S ADVERTISING - Dave Trott's Blog For me, one of the reassuring things about the English pub has always been the ‘Ploughman’s Lunch’, the food traditionally served in country pubs. It’s just what a farmer needed after the thirsty work...

"This is a great lesson for those of us working in mass media: nothing, not even history, is cast in stone, we don’t have to be reverential about it.

The great lesson is: if we can invent history, we can invent anything."- #DaveTrott

davetrott.co.uk/2025/11/the-...

we have no option but to follow the herd. Which is why 89% of advertising is purely decorative and not functional at all."- #DaveTrott

The creative’s job started with the strategy, the creative re-interpretation of the job we were supposed to be doing.

That’s why the very best creatives came up with the most creative strategies. #DaveTrott

STRATEGY IS STRANGLING ADVERTISING - Dave Trott's Blog In 1934, Willy Messerschmitt won a competition to design the fighter for the Luftwaffe. He didn’t like flying himself, but he was superb designer. When he developed the Messerschmitt 109, it embodied ...

Because all that clever strategy doesn’t survive the trip from the presentation room to the real world.

As Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke said:

“No strategy survives first contact with the enemy”.- #DaveTrott

davetrott.co.uk/2025/07/stra...

ADVERTISING ISN’T MARKETING - Dave Trott's Blog My father-in-law was a plumber, but he never trained as a plumber. When he was seven his region of China was flooded, hundreds of thousands of people drowned, he clung to a tree for three days until h...

"But I find some people don’t understand the difference and that’s a problem.

Sales is marketing’s job, advertising’s job is communication." #DaveTrott

davetrott.co.uk/2025/07/adve...

BURNT TOAST THINKING - Dave Trott's Blog When the Japanese attacked the American fleet at Pearl Harbour they celebrated it as a massive victory. They thought they’d won the war, but it was actually the point at which they lost the war. How c...

"We can be terrified that it’s replacing us by copying what we do, or we can realise that all AI does is copy what we do. It doesn’t have ideas; it doesn’t initiate anything, It takes someone creative to have an idea, then they use AI to make that idea happen."- #DaveTrott

"Creativity is about taking advantage of people who are sticking rigidly to the letter of the law".- #DaveTrott #CrossOverCreativity

"What's true is what's always been true: real creativity doesn't restrict itself to what everyone else is thinking".- #DaveTrott

To avoid thinking, we simply change the language to something that disguises any problem".- #DaveTrott

WHY THEY AREN’T LISTENING - Dave Trott's Blog There’s an anecdote that always intrigues me about an English tank-commander leading his column of tanks through the ruins of Berlin in 1945. Standing in the rubble is a German woman yelling something...

"This is the mistake most people who write advertising strategies make.

They believe that people emotionally choose a brand and can be switched by identifying the emotional touch-point and simply claiming it for their own brand."- #DaveTrott
davetrott.co.uk/2025/03/why-...

"That's why de Bono insisted practicality is a measure of creativity. Creativity has to have a purpose. Mainly highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of the car is separate from the way the car is driven". #DaveTrott

THE MAN WHO MARKETED THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION - Dave Trott's Blog One of my marketing heroes didn’t work in marketing at all, in fact he lived over 100 years before marketing existed. His name was James Watt, and he marketed the Industrial Revolution. How could one ...

James Watt didn’t just invent better steam engines—he marketed the Industrial Revolution.

By creating “horsepower,” he translated complex engineering into a language farmers and pit owners understood. His unit still defines power today, from F1 cars to Apollo 11. #Marketing #Innovation
#davetrott

The more reactions we get, the more ideas we'll have. All we have to do is collect lots of different, unconnected things to put together". "That's crossover creativity".

#DaveTrott #CrossOverCreativity

ADVERTISING THAT’S ASHAMED OF ITSELF - Dave Trott's Blog One time, a client CEO asked me to do a talk to her brand managers, to explain to marketing people what advertising is supposed to be about. (Top Tip: advertising isn’t the same as marketing.) It seem...

"We have advertising done purely to win awards at Cannes where there are no ordinary people.

Advertising done by people who are pretending to be something they’re not".- #DaveTrott

davetrott.co.uk/2025/02/adve...

WORDS BEAT DATA - Dave Trott's Blog In 1842, the Second Report of the Children’s Employment Commission was released. Young girls were spending 16 hours a day, six days a week, sewing garments. Boys as young as eight were pulling coal ca...

In 1843, Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol to expose the cruelty of child labour and the greed of the wealthy. Inspired by grim realities, he replaced cold facts with emotion, turning Scrooge into a symbol of change. His “sledgehammer” of storytelling still resonates today. #DaveTrott

MORE MONEY THAN BRAINS - Dave Trott's Blog World War One was the first war to feature aircraft. As it was a new way of making war, the different sides had to figure out how it worked. For the human mind, the principle is nearly always: More is...

World War I showed “more is better” doesn’t always work, as Germany’s single 20mm cannon outperformed Britain’s 8 machine guns. WWII’s HMS Hood fell to similar thinking. Today, advertisers rely on repetition over creativity, proving once again: they’ve got more money than brains. #davetrott