DAVE TROTT: PREDATORY MARKETING PRINCIPLES

Morning!

I’ve just watched the best marketing lecture I’ve ever seen.

I usually like to write a life update in these intros. Today, the intro is to get reading, because I’m about to share some gems from a fellow Englishman who explains marketing better than anyone I know.

Here are 7 priceless marketing principles from Dave Trott:

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BREAKING DOWN THE STRATEGY

I love Harry Dry. He’s my marketing idol and I regularly study his work deeply.

In fact, I just read the book ‘Hey Whipple, Squeeze This’ purely because he mentioned it in his newsletter.

(Sad… but true)

So when I saw this tweet from Harry I instantly got curious:

I’d heard of Trott a few times while researching and had recently come across his book ‘Predatory Thinking’.

But who even is he? And why is Harry speaking so highly of him?

Off down the rabbit hole I went.

I began reading his blogs. Listening to old interviews. Reading through his tweets.

The deeper I dug, the more interested I became. Until I stumbled upon an hour-long lecture from 2013 on ‘Predatory thinking for copywriters’.

“An hour-long”, I groaned. “I’ll listen to the first few minutes and see if it included any lessons.”

For the next hour, I sat wide-eyed staring at my screen while rapidly taking notes.

Dave Trott was a hidden gem that I wish I’d come across sooner.

In 57 minutes, he gave me a true masterclass on how to actually write good copy and make great ads.

I will give you a link to the full lecture at the end, for now enjoy 7 priceless marketing principles I learned from Dave Trott:

Principle 1: All Marketing Should Tick “The Trott 3”

I’ll admit that Trott didn’t call it “The Trott 3” in the lecture, but I’m going to use it as a simple way to remember his framework.

Because it was something that was a huge eye-opener for me.

Trott says that inherently all advertising is just a conversation, and the best have these 3 elements

1/ Impact
2/ Communication
3/ Persuasion

Trott maps them out into a funnel structure like this:

Dave says that if you strolled into most advertising departments the entire team would be focusing on the bottom section - persuasion.

“How can we make this ad push more people to take action”.

But Dave says great ads, have all 3:

1/ Impact: If your ad has no impact, then nothing happens - because it never ends up on the customer’s radar. 

2/ Communication: If your ad makes an impact but no one knows what you’re saying… again, nothing happens.

3/ Persuasion:  It’s only when an ad has an impact, communicates what you want to say and THEN lets people know why they should take action… then something happens!

This is such a simple way to look at all advertising and I absolutely freakin love it.

Impact → Communication → Persuasion.

The Trott 3.

Etch that into your brain!

Principle 2: Stop Focusing On The 7%

89% of advertising goes unnoticed or not remembered. 7% gets remembered negatively. 4% works.

Dave says that advertisers spend way too much time trying to avoid the 7%.

They put all of their efforts into creating ads that get liked and win awards.

And to put it plainly… Dave hates this. He says:

The old (or maybe they still air?) Go Compare ads are a prime example of this.

Did anyone like the Go Compare ads? Absolutely not.

But do they stick deep inside everyone’s brains? Absolutely.

In Dave’s mind, that makes a great ad.

Principle 3: Always Lean Towards Impact

Going back to the (newly coined) Trott 3, there are obviously 3 aspects of it to focus on.

But Dave doesn’t believe that all sections of the Trott 3 are created equal.

Because while everyone spends all their time trying to make their ads persuasive, Dave says to focus more on impact.

And he has a pretty logical argument.

If 89% of ads don’t get noticed or remembered. Then the no.1 reason ads fail is because they lack impact.

Increase impact, increase your chances of success.

Pretty simple.

Now do you see why Harry said Dave explains things so simply?

Principle 4: Different Is Always Better

Dave says, “The role of an advertiser is to not be wallpaper”.

The way to do that? Differentiating your ads.

Dave goes on to compare the advertising industry to a bunch of circles…

Everyone aims to create award-winning ads, so they create ads… just like the award winners.

The result: They all look the same.

A sea of circles that don’t stand out and end up being wallpaper that goes unnoticed.

Then there’s the X.

The X isn’t necessarily better than the other ads, or more creative, or sharper messaging - it’s just different.

But by being different, it gets noticed.

Another reason why the Go Compare campaign worked so well. Name another brand that had a big opera singer running around shouting “Go Compare” - I’ll wait!

Principle 5: Don’t Listen To People With Big Budgets

Most ads are bad, made to look good by a £83 million budget.

When you’re in marketing it’s easy to admire the companies pouring millions into marketing and think, “Wow they must know what they’re doing… I’ll study them”.

But Dave says that’s the complete opposite of what you should do. He gives the example of ‘Direct Line’ in the UK.

Dave’s suggestion instead: Study companies that do a lot with a little - they’re often the most creative.

Principle 6: Think Upstream

‘Chip pans' are the single largest cause of fires in the U.K., causing over 12,000 each year.

So in an effort to reduce it, the fire prevention committee called on an advertising agency to help reduce these chip pan fires.

The agency began rolling out ads that emphasised how bad a fire can be.

Dave calls this ‘Downstream thinking’.

He says, “Cheers for telling me how bad a fire is, if I’d know that I wouldn’t have had one.”

It’s obvious. It doesn’t add anything. And most of all, it doesn’t change anything.

A few years later, Dave’s agency took over the account and applied what he calls ‘Upstream thinking’.

They asked themselves, “How can we track the campaign’s success?”

Answer: Based on fire brigade call-outs.

“How can we reduce fire brigade call-outs?”

We tell people how to put out a chip pan fire so they don’t need to call the fire brigade.

They launched the campaign and chip pan fires went down by 40%.

All because they thought upstream of the problem.

Principle 7: Focus On The Thing That Never Changes

Last, but arguably the most important principle that Trott taught me was to always focus on the thing that never changes.

Marketers love shiny new channels.

TikTok. YouTube shorts. Twitter.

Whatever people are talking about, we love to try out. But Dave says that you should only focus on one thing…

The consumer.

He says:

I wish I could ingrain this into my entire team’s heads, as well as my own.

Because it’s arguably the biggest mistake I see in marketing.

People love to find clever ways to game the algorithm or create a clever way to boost stats. In reality, a campaign’s success is always determined by the consumer.

“It either catches on or dies with them”.

That’s where 90% of your focus should be.

 🌱 THE GREENHOUSE

Things I’ve saved this week that are worth seeing:

• Watch the full Dave Trott lecture. (See here)

• Harry Dry showcasing Trott 3 in action. (See here)

• Dave Trott’s blog. (See here)

TL;DR

1/ All marketing should tick “The Trott 3”
2/ Stop focusing on the 7%
3/ Always lean towards impact
4/ Different is always better
5/ Don’t listen to people with big budgets
6/ Think upstream
7/ Focus On The Thing That Never Changes

At this point, I think it’s safe to say that Harry was right… no one explains advertising as simple as Dave Trott.

I sure learned a lot writing this, I hope you learned a lot reading it.

Have someone in mind that you’d like to see me break down? Hit reply and let me know :)

Until next Sunday.

— Niall

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This has been a breakdown of Dave Trott’s approach to marketing. I hope you have learned something and can implement a similar strategy in your business!

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