Trotty’s got a new book out
Posted in Uncategorized
Back in 2008 I met a bloke called Dave Trott.
He’s an an advertising legend who writes blogs in short sentences.
Like this one.
Over the next few years he gave me the best advice I’ve ever had.
He literally changed my life.
So I think he’s worth listening to.
A few years ago he brought out a book that collected all his blog advice together.
And now he’s written a new one.
And while you wait for it to arrive you can watch this interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUXijPBEh9Q&feature=youtu.be
‘If you spend your time trying not to get fired you’ll slow down to the speed where you won’t get fired.’
You can’t argue with that.
Thanks, Dave.
wasn’t very concise.
So Ben…what was the advice Trotty gave you?
Not just yours.
@ Peggy: do the Landmark Forum.
I keep mentioning it on here. There’s usually some interest. I can’t recommend it enough.
Is the Landmark Forum a cult?
Inspiring stuff. It’s certainly put a rocket up my morning. Thanks for posting, Ben.
THAT is the best quote i have ever read.
ok. one of them.
I don’t need to do the Landmark Forum. I need seed capital. Know any v.c’s or better still a footy mad programmer type or account man with some mahoney?
@ Nagul: apparently not http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/dec/14/ameliahill.theobserver
They’ve also had observers from cult-busting organisations do the Forum and they all agree it’s almost the opposite. They want you to connect with your families whereas cults want to isolate you. They don’t charge much money and you can easily stop at the three days.
John: I recall this being an issue for you two years ago. Perhaps you are stuck in a pattern of behaviour that makes it difficult for you to get the money you need. The Forum might well help with that.
I was handed a card a while back, Ben, that said, “Do not pass Go. Do not collect £200.”
You don’t need to do the Landmark thing. Just read Montaigne’s Essays.
And Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations is pretty helpful too.
Dont get me wrong. I love Dave Trott and his writing. But he lives, like a lot of other great ad guys, in another time. I think the spirit of what he has to say does reign true but to a point. What if your creative director tells you not to do it and you do it and you DONT win a D&AD Gold and sales DONT go up in fact…you just get bollocked for going against your CD’s superioriority. Guess what? You get fired and you get fucked with no job to go to. You’re not the Gold Pencil Winning maverick, you’re just the little prick that thinks he knows best and wont take proper direction. Sadly, this is not the 80s and we are not all Paul Arden or Graham Fink. This is a business. There are rules and hierachies. Its not making art. Like it or not you kind of have to follow them to a point.
Trott speaks like a Trotskyist sometimes doesn’t he? I like that.
The working class are dead btw at least politically.
Most people when they say working class these days mean poor, that wasn’t what it once meant.
Well, the attitude difference you highlight is also the difference between your chances of being a great creative and being a good one.
What if you do your safe, so-so ad campaigns week after week? Then the CD wonders who to fire when the belt-tightening comes (as it inevitably does). It’s you because he could replace you with someone on half your wages.
You sound pretty scared. Are you going to spend the rest of your life like that?
Live a little. You never know what might happen.
(And it’s ‘ring true’, not ‘reign true’.)
I love Trotty…but i wish the work at his agency lived up to his philosophy.
Leaves a ‘bit’ of a sour taste in my mouth to be honest.
But he still talks a good game.
Re anonymous 12
There are no rules and hierarchies.
It’s all made up.
Good advice coming from people who “made it”, like Dave and Ben. Don’t get me wrong, Dave is one of my heroes. I also like reading this blog of yours Ben, but I am just about fed up with people who are one of the few, giving us “good advice”.
What you both say makes a lot of sense, but I totally understand where @12 is coming from. You either stand in for what you believe (and get sacked with no job to go to) or just follow orders and produce shit like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT3tTukADnY
I’m not scared. The truth is that there are no agencies left who tolerate stuff like the “smell the marijuana in reception”. Or other such behaviour. Try to have fun or to voice your opinion about why a brief is shit or why idea xyz is crap, you’re out the door. Not immediately, but in due time.
Opinions are not tolerated. And don’t you dare say anything bad about anyone or anything. What was once “when I was a junior at BMP”-time is not applicable anymore, like it or not. You either follow commands or get your ass on the dole. That’s the truth and anyone who says different is not working in advertising right now.
Ben, your comment replies deserve a blog of their own. I’ll start collating.
And Dave would make a great football manager.
Steakandcheese: Dave and I have both been fired, or some equivalent, on more than one occasion.
Im not saying one thing has to lead to the other, but I’ve lost count of the times people who have had to leave their job end up thinking it’s the best thing that ever happened to them.
Each of the times it happened to me I ended up in a much better situation, partly due to the fire that was lit under my arse.
No need to gratuitously seek it out, but I think TS Eliot said ‘If you don’t go too far you’ll never know how far you can go’.
And I’ll say again – try Landmark. You’ll think very differently after you do it.
This idea that there are now rules to obey and hierarchies to respect is part of the problem.
There were always notionally such, but the kind of characters in advertising then were a more ballsy, interesting bunch.
Now creative department are staffed with boring, play it safe types.
It’s not the situation that’s different, it’s you.
I’ve been fired. I know a lot of really great people who’ve been fired, or made redundant come the culling. But they’ve always bounced back and gone on to better things.
If you’re good you will.
Stop being such fucking crybabies and do something interesting with your lives before you turn around and realised you wasted it doing what you’re supposed to.
@steakandcheese
Why on earth would you want a career in such an industry?
If you are young, why not do something else?
I completely understand what you are saying. You’re absolutely on the money. But being right won’t lessen the awful feeling you’ll get when you look back on your life knowing that the nobheads you describe took it from you.
Generally, I think talented people are going to have to choose between creativity and advertising – that is, art and money. If advertising doesn’t let us express ourselves, fuck advertising right in the hole and do something else for less money and create art.
@steak and cheese
The way I deal with it is this. Give ’em what they ask for but also give them something good too. And something somewhere between. And something a bit off brief.
No one minds getting lots of ideas.
Of course they’ll go with the crap stuff the client wants but at least you’ve done your best to make them see sense.
I mean you can lead a twat to water but you can’t force their head underwater. Sadly.
@steakandcheese What you describe is awful, and it isn’t the way the business should be. I absolutely agree that a lot of agencies are like that – and they have a lot of play-it-safe, boring wankers working at them who are ruining this business and creating these poisonous, uncreative environments.
But don’t lose hope, you’re just working at the wrong places or for the wrong people. The are still small pockets of people doing it the right way. Maybe not the big places I grant you, but if you have the passion and the ability, there are still a few places out there where it’s possible to be a talented, opinionated, energetic person and be appreciated, not hammered down because of it. And I am working in advertising right now.
@anon21 It’s important for the sake of their own sanity for anyone in advertising to remember that advertising is a business that harnesses creativity for commercial ends. It’s where art meets commerce. It isn’t pure creativity or pure art. It’s not the job of the ad business to let people ‘express themselves’, but advertising is best served by harnessing the best creativity of talented people.
@sellsell
I totally agree. But we should be creative people first and advertising people second.
For a good few years, advertising has been a good place for creative people to have fun, use their talents and – even – express themselves. A brilliant, brilliant job.
But we seem to be at a critical juncture where that is changing. You and your blog have documented this change as well as anyone.
And the minute advertising treats creative people like shit on the bottom of their shoe, then creative people should desert the industry and do something else. Especially the young guns. Let’s see where that leaves the industry.
Creatives should aspire to more than commercialism, in my opinion, and only take the commercial road if it makes good use of their talents, offers fun, or pays them obscene amounts of money.
‘Serving’ advertising is not something that appeals to me personally. I want advertising to serve me. The minute it stops doing that, I’ll be over there writing or making something that doesn’t have a logo stuck on it.
I’m sure some of this rings true. Like I say, your blog is one of the only true artistic voices left in the business.
Thanks Anonymouse, I appreciate the kind words.
I didn’t mean creatives should ‘serve’ advertising, but that being a creative in advertising is different to just being creative. We aren’t just ‘creative people’ – although we are creative people – we are admen/women – there to use our talents for commercial ends.
But I agree, the business is treating creatives increasingly badly. Work is becoming commoditised (“Five more routes please”) whilst the strategy and bollocks-talking departments rack up the billable hours.
Advertising IS creative people though. Writers, art directors. We ARE advertising. As Bob Hoffman says, everyone else just makes the arrangements. Without creative people, advertising is fucked. It may have to get worse before it gets better for people to realise that.
The business has been taken over by the bean-counters, the management greasy-pole types, the planners and the bullshitters. That’s partly why it’s fucked currently. These people will do and say whatever a clients want them to do and say, to keep the revenue high and the holding companies happy. We need more creative people in positions of power in agencies, more owner-founder-creatives, running agencies hands-on, not just hired and fired by bean-counters based on meaningless Gunn Report results.
Advertising belongs to creative people. We can wait until it’s completely fucked and the business resets itself, or we can take it back. I still think advertising can be a great business, if we make it so. Don’t politely wait for things to change, grab the business by the scruff of the neck and make it what you want it to be.
Hi Ben, thanks for featuring our video on your blog. The interview with Dave is only a small part of a documentary we’re making on the late great John Webster. We have more interviews to see from greats like Hegarty, Sutherland and Henry!
If you’re interested we’re showing a 20 minute teaser at the School of Communication Arts stall at the New Blood festival from the July 2nd. We’d also love to send you a copy once it’s done. Thanks again.
Thanks to everyone who replied, I appreciate it.