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Predatory Thinking: A Masterclass In Out-Thinking The Competition (2013)

by Dave Trott(Favorite Author)

4.12 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0230770665 (ISBN13: 9780230770669)

languge

English

genre

Food & Cookbooks

publisher

Macmillan

review 1: This book is a treasure.I, myself, am a beginner in ad land and most of the time I try to self-educate with the help of books. I've found this book in a list of random recommendations. Every story had blown my mind away. There are actually many useful lessons in everyday life. More, than we see. More, than we want to see. I've read just a couple more books about ad land, but I can say that Dave Trott states up important rules in a simple way, like Hawking tells about astrophysics. (The brief History of Time is one of my favorite books ever.)
review 2: By Dave Trott. Grade: ADave Trott is currently Chairman of The Gate London. As part of the creative team behind ‘Hello Tosh Gotta Toshiba’, ‘Ariston and on and on’, the Cadbury’s Flake ads and many more,... more Dave’s former agency Gold Greenlees Trott was voted Agency of the Year by Campaign Magazine, and Most Creative Agency in the World by Ad Age in New York. In 2004 he was given the D&AD President’s Award for lifetime achievement in advertising. It stands to reason that this man would know something about predatory thinking, and how to out-think the competition. Perhaps that’s why his first book Creative Mischief received such widespread acclaim. His second book just reaffirms the faith.Dave is not a self-proclaimed management guru who claims to show you the light and turn your life around if you follow a few simple steps. Instead of making it a how-to guide which nobody would really read, Dave makes it a collection of lean anecdotes that he has picked from his own experiences, and the experiences of people he admires. Dave knows the impact of clarity and simplicity, and even though not a single anecdote lasts beyond a few hundred words, the nuggets of wisdom embedded in it are worth years of experience. It would be difficult to put my point across without an example:(extract)Wetherspoon owns a large range of pubs and hotels all over the UK.It was founded in 1979 by Tim Martin.Wetherspoon now has 764 pubs, 16 hotels and over 20,000 employees.It has annual revenues of 955 million (pounds), an operating income of 97 million (pounds) and a profit of 25 million (pounds).I’m not an accountant, but those figures sound pretty good to me.The part I like most of all is why the company is called WETHERSPOONWhen Tim Martin, the founder, was at school he had a teacher called Wetherspoon. Apparently that teacher told Tim Martin’s parents that he’d never amount to anything.Time Martin grew up wanting to prove him wrong. But he knew if he just put his own name, Martin, on his pubs, the teacher might not spot it. After all, ‘Martin’ could be anybody.But he knew nobody can resist looking at their own name.So, just to rub it, he named the company after that teacher.Because Tim Martin wanted Wetherspoon to see his own name on pubs all over the country.And every time he passed his own name, to know it was put there by the boy he said would never amount to anything.Elitist readers might disapprove of his conversational, rambling writing style that is apparently going nowhere. However, I for one loved the casual, relaxed approach of the book that establishes an immediate rapport. It’s not a stretched out, elongated tome. It doesn’t take pages to put its point across, or delve deeply into the psychology and marketing creativity of people. In the beginning, it was difficult seeing one sentence acting as one paragraph, but pretty soon I had disregarded my Grammar Nazism and started enjoying myself immensely.You won’t be able to stop yourself from reaching for that highlighter on your bed-side, or laughing out loud at some of the incidents. Creative people working in any field – advertising or not-advertising – or people simply managing other people would find themselves dipping again and again into this gold mine, drawing inspiration and perspective. It’s a breezy dip-in dip-out reference manual that provides a lot of brilliant ideas for presentations and speeches.(extract)Farmer Jones was ploughing his field and his plough broke.He thought, ‘Farmer Giles on the next farm over has got a spare plough, I’ll ask him if I can borrow it.’And he started walking.As he was walking, he thought, ‘I wonder if he will lend me his plough.’As he walked further he thought, ‘He might not. That would be mean, not to lend someone your spare plough’.Finally he arrived and thought, ‘I bet he’s just the sort of bloke not to lend his neighbor his plough.’And he knocked on the door.As Farmer Giles opened it he said to him, “You can stick your fucking plough up your arse.A must-read for any person who believes in the power of creativity.“Originally reviewed at Vaultofbooks.com, a close-knit community of fanatical readers. We are looking for perceptive readers who can write well, and we are eager to provide lots of free books in exchange for reviews. Shot us a mail at [email protected]” less

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