Top 15 Dave Trott Quotes

If you avoid the rejection, you avoid the opportunity.

Efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things.

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.

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.

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.

As the author Anaïs Nin said, ‘We see things not as they are, but as we are.

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.

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?

We don’t keep competing inside a competitive set where we can’t win. We change the competitive set, change the perspective.

Brand is another word for reputation or image. And you don’t get a reputation just by claiming something.

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.

The product creates the experience. The experience creates the reputation. The reputation creates the brand.

There was nothing there except some woods with a lunatic asylum and a graveyard in the middle.

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.

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.