Dave Trott’s Blog

Suppose you haven’t won an award.

Or you aren’t getting on well at work.

You aren’t getting the briefs you want.

Or you’ve just lost your job.

Or you’ve been trying for ages and you can’t get another job.

Or you just lost a pitch.

Or you just lost a client.

Whatever.

You’re feeling depressed because it feels like failure.

You didn’t get the result you wanted.

But the issue isn’t really did you win or lose.

The issue is did you do absolutely everything that you possibly could?

Or did you hold something back?

Were you worried about upsetting someone?

Were you frightened of being embarrassed?

Did you let someone talk you out of doing it?

Or did you give it absolutely, positively everything you possibly could.

And then some more.

If you did all that, and you still failed, then you have nothing to reproach yourself for.

You can be satisfied that you did everything possible.

There was nothing else you could do.

But if you didn’t do everything you possibly could.

If you’re now thinking what else you could have done.

If you held something back, that’s regret.

You’re regretting what you could have done, and didn’t.

And that’s when depression sets in.

They have an expression in Brooklyn for this.

They say, “Yeah, yeah: coulda, woulda, shoulda.”

In other words, when someone is telling you what went wrong and why.

Telling you about what they could have done.

What they would have done.

What they should have done.

But, and this is the reason they’re talking about it in the first place, it all adds up to the same thing.

They didn’t do it.

And now it’s too late.

Could you have worked later on the pitch?

Would it have been better if you’d done more work while you had the chance?

Should you have called the client yourself and discussed your ad instead of leaving it to the account man?

Could you have asked traffic for more briefs?

Would it have made sense to put your book together earlier?

Should you have taken more risks in your ads instead of always playing safe?

“Yeah, yeah: coulda, woulda, shoulda.”

I think that should be everyone’s greatest fear.

Not whether we won or lost.

Not whether we got the result we wanted.

But did we go beyond what was reasonable to get it?

Did we give it everything possible?

Did we go so far, put in so much effort, that all our friends said we were working too hard?

Because when our friends and family say we’re working too hard, that’s when we know we’re working at just about the right level.

They’re over the pub, or watching TV.

And they’re telling us that we’re working too hard.

That we should be more like them.

Over the pub or watching TV.

Take a look and decide for yourself.

George Bernard Shaw said, “I want to be totally used up when I die.

I don’t want them to bury any unused parts.”

I think that’s an ambition that’s a lot bigger than just winning or losing.

I was watching a TV programme about Philippe Starcke.

It was the only format that seems to be allowed on TV these days.

Twelve people get selected to compete for something.

Then every week two of them get asked to leave.

So this show was like “The Apprentice” with a barmy French designer in the Alan Sugar role.

They had twelve design students competing for a job at his Paris studio.

Personally I’m not crazy about Philippe Starcke’s designs.

They seem a bit too whimsical for me.

Nice perhaps, amusing even, but a bit trivial, and short term.

My start point for design is Bauhaus principles.

Form Follows Function.

First you define the problem, then judge the answer by how well it does that job.

With Starke it seems to be the other way round, Function Follows Form.

But as I was watching the twelve students present it struck me.

Although he and I are totally different kinds of creative people, this is exactly like every advertising class I’ve ever taught.

The students don’t get it.

They’re treating him like a teacher and he’s not.

They’re treating this like school and it’s not.

He set them a project that was “Design something that will be of benefit to the world”.

So they thought that was the brief.

But it wasn’t.

This wasn’t school and he wasn’t their teacher.

This was a TV programme and two of them have to leave after this project.

So the brief is actually, “Beat the other students”.

In which case the consumer has now changed.

It isn’t the population of the world.

It’s Philippe Starke.

So how can you convince Philippe Starcke that you are different to the other students and should be kept on the programme?

Well what he wanted, what every creative director wants, is to be surprised.

To be engaged.

To be told something we don’t already know.

In which case the brief isn’t to just sit down and start designing the same old stuff in new and exciting shapes.

The brief is to amaze him.

Tell him something he doesn’t know.

What we call, in our creative department, a “Holy shit!” factor.

(What Americans call a “Gee whizz” factor, or a “Wow” factor.)

Something that you look at and say, “Holy shit, I didn’t know that.”

So now the brief has changed.

Before you pick up a pencil or magic marker, you turn on the laptop and start doing research.

You start to investigate, to discover, to trawl through information.

Eventually something jumps out that makes you go “Holy shit!”

(Or “Gee whizz” or “Wow”.)

Something that, when you tell your friends in the pub, they’ll have the same reaction.

Now you’ve got something that the rest of your competition haven’t got.

You’ve got something different.

Something to make you stand out.

And that’s exactly how it worked here.

The first guy decided that, in future, we would need to live on the ocean and use the land for growing food.

Starcke said, “You ‘ave ‘ad a week, and zis is ze best you can do? Zis is boring, we ‘ave seen it all before. Zere is nussink new ‘ere.”

And the guy had to leave the course.

The next guy had designed a tunnel full of sensory experiences to make everyone appreciate the gift of life.

Starcke said, “Maybe you are a great marketing person and you weel make a lot of money. But you are not a designer. Zere is nussink new ‘ere.”

And he was thrown off the course.

Then a girl presented.

She didn’t show any designs.

She said, “Only 10% of the world has clean, drinkable water. We waste an amazing amount of it just by taking it for granted. I think we should have a small meter on every tap to show us exactly how much water we’re using every time we turn a tap on. I think that awareness will cut water consumption drastically.”

Starcke sat quietly for a moment.

Then he said, “Zat is amazing. Only 10% of ze world has clean drinking water? You are right, a meter weel make us see what we are wasting.

You weel make us think about zat every time we turn a tap on.”

And she went straight through to the next round.

Not by doing tons of beautiful designs for water meters.

I’m sure Starcke could do a better design than whatever she did.

But what she did was surprise him.

She told him something he didn’t know.

Something that made him think.

And that’s what he was looking for.

And that’s why watching that show was like watching every advertising course I’ve ever taught.

And every interview I’ve ever had.

Students forget what the real job of student work is.

They’re not doing real work to actually run in the real world.

They’re doing work to get a job.

Students forget who their audience is.

They never work out the real brief.

Except the ones who get the jobs.

Years ago I studied Kung Fu for a while.

I wasn’t very good at it, but one lesson stuck with me.

The master always said you should punch beyond your target.

If you’re trying to break a plank of wood for instance, you need to aim about six inches behind it.

This means your fist will still be accelerating as it hits the target.

Which gives it a lot more power: energy is still being released at point of contact.

That’s a good metaphor for a lot of things.

Nowadays, in the new brand-speak, it’s called ‘over-commitment’.

Doing more than you think you need to.

This is a really good lesson for everyone.

Especially students.

Students do exactly what they’re told to do by their tutors.

This is dumb.

Because every other student is being told exactly the same thing.

And if you all do the same thing you’ll all end up looking exactly the same.

So you won’t stand out.

And, in advertising, this is not a good idea.

Whatever your tutor has told you should be the start point for what you do.

Not the finish point.

You need to over-commit.

You need to go beyond what’s reasonable.

Vinnie Warren was a young Irish guy who went to New York to get a job in advertising.

He knew who he wanted to work for, Ed McCabe.

Now Ed is also one of my heroes.

His work is powerful, confrontational, unforgettable, and effective.

He built Volvo and Perdue as massive brands from virtually nothing.

Anyone who wants to learn how you do great advertising would want to work for Ed.

But Ed wasn’t hiring anyone.

So, if Vinnie was reasonable, he’d give up and try to get a job elsewhere.

But Vinnie wasn’t reasonable.

He got a job driving a horse and carriage around Central Park at night.

Then, during the day, he pretended to be a student at Pratt Institute so he could study their library of advertising annuals.

And he learned everything he could about Ed McCabe.

He learned where he lived, how he travelled to work, what brands he liked, and what he didn’t like.

Then he’d stalk Ed.

He’d follow him through the streets and on the subway.

He’d watch what he did and where he went.

And Vinnie found out that Ed had one particular hate.

Another New York ad agency called Kirschenbaum and Bond.

So Vinnie put together a deliberately bad portfolio and sent it to them.

Just so he could get a rejection letter from the agency Ed McCabe hated.

The he sent his real portfolio over to Ed.

With the rejection letter pasted onto it.

Above it he wrote, ‘DEAR ED McCABE, I HOPE YOUR TASTE IN ADVERTISING IS BETTER THAN KIRSCHENBAUM & BOND’S.”

Now Vinnie’s behaviour raises a few questions.

Was it illegal?

Possibly.

Was it unreasonable?

Most definitely.

But actually there’s really only one important question.

Did it work?

Well Vinnie got the job with Ed McCabe.

One of the most difficult and talented people in advertising.

He worked with him and learned from him.

He’d already learned the value of over-commitment.

And he’d had it reinforced by working with Ed, who demanded it.

Vinnie brought that over-commitment into his advertising.

Eventually Vinnie left Ed’s agency and started doing the advertising for Budweiser.

His campaign featured the single word “WASSSUUUUP” repeated over and over and over again throughout the commercials.

Was it repetitive?

Yup.

Was it unreasonable?

Yup.

Did it work?

Like gangbusters, as they say on New York.

That’s probably the single most viewed advert on YouTube around the world.

It did more for Budweiser’s sales than the previous decades of advertising.

Vinnie now owns and runs his own agency in Chicago.

He’s picking up more accounts and awards all the time.

All by being unreasonable, and over-committing.

I always tell students it’s pretty simple.

Think of it as a game of darts.

Once you’ve thrown the dart, gravity will always pull it down.

So you have to aim above what you actually want.

If you want the bull, aim for treble twenty.

If you want treble twenty, aim for double top.

You have to over-commit.

Or, to put it another way.

You’ll always get less than you go for, so go for more than you want.

My wife is Singaporean and occasionally we go back to visit her folks.

We’re usually a bit more tanned when we come back.

After one particular holiday we went to see my mum.

Mum opened the door, gave her a big hug and said, “Ooh Cathy, you look lovely. You look just like a nigger.”

Cathy didn’t know what to make of this.

She’d been told this word was a terrible insult.

And yet here was someone clearly using it as a compliment.

Cathy was listening simultaneously to the intent and the words, and they were giving her mixed messages.

In other words, cognitive dissonance.

Clearly my mum thought looking like a nigger was a good thing.

The problem was no one had told my mum that nigger was now a bad word.

Mum was born before the First World War, and it wasn’t a bad word then.

It was just slang, like Yank, or Scouse, or Frog, or Kraut, or Jap, or Jock, or Paddy, or Kiwi, or Bubble, or Cockney.

Maybe not the language you’d use at an embassy reception.

But this was east London.

Language is rougher and cruder.

To see if any offense is meant, you have to listen to the intention.

Not just the words.

Cognitive dissonance works the other way round, too.

Have you ever heard a mother in the supermarket whose child is having a tantrum?

Often she’ll be screaming, “CALM DOWN!!!” at the child, at the top of her voice.

And wondering why it isn’t working.

Apparently, only 25% of communication is in the words we actually use.

The other 75% is everything else.

The tone of voice we say the words in.

Whether we’re smiling or frowning.

Whether our body language is friendly or hostile.

But when we communicate in print, like this blog, we lose that 75%.

So it’s completely easy to misinterpret intention.

Irony for instance, doesn’t work.

Take the two words, “Oh really?”

That’s all you get on paper.

An enquiry, apparently seeking verification.

But face-to-face you get the bit in brackets.

“Oh really?” (enthusiastic)

“Oh really?” (bored)

“Oh really?” (sarcastic)

“Oh really?” (suspicious)

“Oh really?” (surprised)

My father-in-law was an old fashioned Chinaman.

When he came to London he was shocked at the way strangers addressed my mother-in-law in the street.

From shopkeepers to bus conductors.

They’d call her “Love” and “Dear” and “Darling” and “Sweetheart”.

He became sullen.

Eventually he confronted her, “Why do all these people know you well enough to call you ‘darling’?  What’s going on?”

It took some time to convince him that his wife was innocent.

She didn’t know these people.

“Then why do they call you ‘darling’?” he wanted to know.

“It’s just their way,” she kept repeating.

“Look, women even call other women ‘love’.”

Eventually she persuaded him to listen to the intention instead of just the words.

And then he could see that no harm was intended by anyone.

The words didn’t signify what he thought they did.

They were actually just meant to be friendly, even respectful.

He would have to adjust to people addressing his wife in this most intimate way.

Using words no one in China would use outside the bedroom.

He would have to learn to listen to the 75%, not just the 25%.

That’s what we all need to remember.

When we have an idea for an ad and fall in love with it.

And in our imaginations, we can see how great it could be.

So we write it up as a script.

Then we give the script to the client.

And they don’t buy it.

And we’re furious that they can’t see how great it could be.

We expect them to see all the possibilities we see.

But all they see is words on paper.

In our heads we can see the other 75%, but they can’t.

John Webster always said, “I hate writing scripts because they can’t get anywhere near what’s in my head.”

But we have to write scripts.

Because no one can justify spending hundreds of thousands of pounds based solely on what’s in our head.

They need something tangible.

And the only tangible part is the 25% that can be written down.

The other 75%, the important part, can’t.

So we need to remember the limitations of words.

As Seneca said, “The word ‘dog’ never bit anyone.”

At art school I always think you learn more from the other students than from the teachers.

For instance, when I started at art school I was studying fine art, and I was confused.

Were we supposed to be painting as realistically as possibly, or not?

Were we supposed to be representing movement, or space, or evoking an emotion or feeling, or what?

No one would say.

It seemed to be what was wanted was whatever the lecturer thought was currently fashionable.

That didn’t seem very creative.

So, when I went to New York, I switched to Graphic design.

And on that course I discovered advertising.

At the same time I met a guy studying Industrial Design, and we ended up sharing an apartment.

His name was Elliot Rudell and he was from Brooklyn.

Everything you’d expect from a Brooklyn wiseass.

Sharp, funny, argumentative, inquisitive, entertaining, and fast.

Two things I learned from Elliot changed my life.

The first was Bauhaus.

Because Elliot was in Industrial Design, Bauhaus was a massive influence on his course.

It was the first time I heard the mantra: FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION.

When I heard it a light went on inside my head.

Suddenly I didn’t have to listen to anyone else’s opinion about what I should be doing anymore.

Now I had a brief that superceded whatever any of my lecturers said.

The solution was dictated by the problem.

It wasn’t dictated by fashion, or my lecturer’s opinions.

The solution was dictated by the problem being solved.

You see Industrial design is mass production in three dimensions.

What I was doing, advertising, was mass production in two dimensions.

So it fitted perfectly.

Just apply the mantra from his course to mine.

Suddenly it unlocked everything that had been confusing me before.

Suddenly I understood what I was doing.

I understood the purpose of advertising.

The second thing I learned from Elliot was to question everything.

Don’t obediently sit back and be grateful for what you get.

That’s not the Brooklyn way.

We’d see a car in the street and I’d say I thought it looked great.

Elliot would say, “Yeah it’s not bad, but they could’ve made it lower and wider. It would’ve been better. And the front’s good, but it looks like they got bored by the time they got to the back.”

And I’d look again and think, yeah he’s right.

I wonder why they didn’t do that.

We’d have those conversations about everything I’d never noticed before.

Chairs, tables, bottles, staplers, typewriters, road signs, phones, pens, bathrooms, blenders.

And the format was always the same.

It was always objective, never subjective.

Always “It would’ve worked better this way.”

Never “I don’t like it.”

Those two things taught me more about advertising than any lecturer.

But even Elliot had to learn there are times when it’s better to keep your mouth shut.

During the protests over Vietnam all the students marched on Wall Street.

Hundreds of construction workers were building the World Trade Centre.

They came down from the towers and began beating up students.

The cops stood back and watched.

One cop said to Elliot, “Dirty hippies. Why don’t you take a bath and get a job?”

Elliot said, “Yeah, I guess I could drop outa college and become a cop.”

And the cop hit him with his night-stick.

So I guess Elliot learned Form Follows Function in action.

If you don’t want to get hit, don’t open your mouth to a cop.

A little while later he and another guy and their girlfriends wanted to drive to Florida.

This was not such a good idea, because they had to drive through Georgia.

Elliot had long hair, scruffy clothes, and a red VW Beetle with massive chrome alloy wheels.

Okay in New York, but not in the Deep South.

And of course he was pulled over by a cop in a Smoky Bear hat and mirror lens sunglasses.

Elliot said, “What seems to be the problem officer.”

The cop looked in the car and said, “Are you-all boys or girls?”

Elliot thought this wasn’t a good sign.

The cop said, “Ya’ll were exceeding the speed limit.”

Elliot said, “But we were only going the same speed as everyone else.”

The cop spat on the floor and said, “Ya’ll calling me a liar boy?”

Elliot thought, “This isn’t Kansas Toto.”

But he’d learned his lesson so he just shut up and paid the fine.

Elliot eventually ended up in California, as hippies do.

He runs his own company designing toys and selling the patents to the big manufacturing companies.

I got an email from Elliot recently.

It said, “Good to hear you’re still a troublemaker Trott”.

It cheered me up to think that somewhere people think that’s a compliment.

It reminded me why I got into advertising all those years ago.

What I loved about it.

It also reminded me of a quote I read last year from the 85 year-old Tony Benn.

He said, “I got a death threat recently. I was so pleased. I haven’t had one of those for ages. It shows I’m not past it.”