davetrott

In 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait.
By 1991 it escalated into what became known as The First Gulf War.
Kuwait couldn’t be allowed to just fall into the hands of a military dictator.
Everyone was outraged.
Kuwait would have to be invaded.
Iraq would have to be thrown out.

So the USA put together a coalition of countries to provide troops, money, and weapons.
The coalition consisted of 34 countries:
Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Niger, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Portugal, Qatar, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Spain, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, the UK, and the U.S.A.
Pretty much everyone.
Except.
The country that was noticeable by its absence was Switzerland.
On the one hand they couldn’t condone what Saddam had done.
But on the other hand Switzerland was traditionally neutral.
For 500 years, and through two world wars, they stayed out of fights.
They just didn’t get involved.
Everyone knew it, and they were famous for it.
Whatever your quarrel was, and whoever it was with, it didn’t involve Switzerland.
That’s what everyone knew in 1991.
Which was when the coalition was getting ready to invade Kuwait.
And what everyone also knew was that Arab terrorists wouldn’t be too pleased about this.
In fact they’d probably try to retaliate any way they could.
They had pretty limited means.
They couldn’t compete with all those countries’ armed forces.
But they could hurt their civilians.
With the one weapon the terrorists had that no one else had.
Suicide bombers.
And the thing that was most vulnerable was civilian airliners.
So suddenly travel on those civilian airlines didn’t seem like such a good idea.
And all those countries pulled their advertising off TV.
But there was one airline that wasn’t a potential terrorist target.
The country that wasn’t part of the coalition.
The country that was historically neutral.
Switzerland.
Their airline could still advertise.
And, coincidentally, lots and lots of prime airline advertising space had just freed up.
So night after night, in the centre break of News At Ten, you’d see Swissair ads.
Right in the middle of all the news about the Gulf War.
Right in the middle of all those reminders of why you shouldn’t fly on any of the coalition airlines.
There’d be an advert for Swissair.
Reminding you, without needing to say it, that Swissair was still safe.
They didn’t have a fight with anyone.
And that is really smart advertising.

Using the context to do your advertising for you.

A couple of weeks back, Paul Bainsfair arranged for Adam Crozier to talk at the IPA,
Adam Crozier worked at Saatchi & Saatchi for ten years.
He went from being the media director to joint CEO.
Then, in a move that surprised everyone, he left Saatchi to become Chief Executive of the Football Association.
In short order he lowered the average age of the staff from 55 to 32.
He cut the FA’s ruling body from 91 members to just 12.
And he appointed the first ever non-English manager: Sven Goren Erickson.
Naturally, he put a lot of noses out of joint.

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My wife is Chinese, her father had two wives.
This was quite conservative by the standards of the day.
When she was at school, the other children came from families of three, four, even five wives.
I remember talking to someone she’d been at school with.
He told me his father had married three sisters, one after the other.
I asked him if the sisters didn’t mind.
He laughed and said they practically arranged it.

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Between 1750 and 1810 London doubled in size.
From 750,000 to one and a half million people.
It was the largest, most overcrowded city in the world.
It hadn’t grown by plan, it just happened.
Consequently there was no infrastructure for that many people.
There were no sewers in those days: every house had a cesspit.
That meant two hundred thousand cesspits all over London.

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In 1979 my art director, Mike Reynolds, and I drove into Downing Street.
Mike had a VW Campervan and we parked it opposite number ten.
You could in those days.
Tourists were taking photos of us as if we were important.
It was Saturday morning and a policeman let us in.
We were there for the advertising think-tank.
What everyone forgets is that until 1979 political parties in the UK didn’t use advertising agencies.
It was seen as a cheap American gimmick.

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I am constantly amazed at how we make such hard work out of what we do.
What we do is simple.
We go from A to B.
But we are petrified of a straight line.
If we were cab drivers we’d go from London to Birmingham via Cornwall.
Why are we so terrified of simplicity?
I was just interviewed by the BBC for a programme they are making for China.
The Chinese have just discovered they can be massively successful manufacturing goods competitively.
So now they need to talk to consumers.
Which means marketing and advertising.

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When I was 30, Leo Burnett offered me the creative director’s job.
At the time 30 was considered too young, so I had to go to the head office in Chicago to be interviewed.
This was a new experience in corporate America for me.
I met the President in the lobby and we got on the elevator.
A secretary was drinking a can of Coke.
The President looked at her and asked “What is that?”
The entire elevator went quiet.
The secretary turned red and became flustered.
“Omigish, I am so sorry. I asked for Royal Crown Cola but they were all sold out. I am so sorry. I promise I will never happen again.”

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A couple of years back there was an interesting item on the news.
A Spanish woman had just won the lottery.
An immense amount of money, around a hundred million Euros.
Naturally she was interviewed by all the media.
They wanted to know the usual.
How did she feel, how would it change her life, who would she give large chunks of cash to?

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Predatory thinking is about asking the right question.
Such as, what was it that sparked the spread of skyscrapers?
Some people say the invention of concrete.
Some people say the invention of steel.
Some people say sheet-glass for the windows.
The real answer is none of these.
All these allowed people to build skyscrapers.
But the technology wasn’t the issue.

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One night we were working late in the studio.
We had a pitch the next day and everyone was pulling all the finished work together.
Mark Goodwin, the studio head, was mounting some ads.
He was cutting out some foam-board with a scalpel.
Suddenly he sliced through the tip of his finger.

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