Predatory Thinking

Powerful strategies for how to out-think the competition, from a great of the advertising world

Two explorers are walking through the jungle.
Suddenly they hear a tiger roar.
One explorer sits down and takes a pair of running shoes out of his backpack.
"You’re crazy, you’ll never out-run a tiger," says the other explorer.
"I don’t have to out-run the tiger," he replies.
"I just have to out-run you."

"Predatory thinking" involves looking at a challenge you can't solve and getting upstream of it—changing it into a challenge you can solve. Written in the form of engaging, brilliantly lean anecdotes and stories, this book explains the predatory thinking philosophy, one that has underpinned Dave Trott’s distinguished career as a copywriter, creative director, and founder of some of London's most high-profile advertising agencies. Drawing on Eastern and Western philosophy, and colorful characters that range from World War II fighter pilots to Picasso, Socrates, and Warren Beatty, this book represents the distilled wisdom of a lifetime at the creative cutting edge.

Dave Trott is the chairman of the full-service creative agency The Gate London. It is part of The Gate worldwide, which has offices in New York, Hong Kong, Singapore, Edinburgh, and Dublin. His 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.