1장
The Unfair Advantage of Corkscrew Thinking
In the darkest days of World War II, Winston Churchill declared that only "corkscrew thinkers" would save Britain-people who approached problems differently when conventional thinking guaranteed defeat. With fewer resources than their enemies, these creative minds gave Britain its secret weapon: the ability to break the "unbreakable" Enigma code, craft Sten guns from bicycle pumps, develop anti-shipping mines from gobstoppers, and even deploy inflatable armies that fooled German intelligence. This wasn't just wartime ingenuity; it was the power of creativity as a competitive edge. Dave Trott's book has become required reading in creative departments across agencies worldwide, with industry leaders citing it as the most practical guide to developing creative thinking in business. As advertising legend Bill Bernbach famously said, "Creativity is the last unfair advantage we're legally allowed to take over the competition"-and Trott shows us exactly how to cultivate and deploy this advantage in a world where conventional thinking leads only to conventional results.
2장
Creativity in Unexpected Places
Creativity often emerges where you least expect it. In 1985, Washington DC police created a fake cable company called F.I.S.T. (Flagship International Sports Television) offering free Redskins tickets to fugitives. The "winners" arrived at a party atmosphere complete with cheerleaders and mascots-only to discover they'd walked into a police sting operation. For just $22,000, officers made 119 arrests and secured 101 convictions of violent criminals who couldn't resist the lure of coveted football tickets. Even the executive's signature (I.M. Detnaw) was an anagram of "I.M. Wanted," yet no one noticed. The fugitives were so focused on the prize they ignored obvious warning signs.
This creative thinking appears in humanitarian efforts too. In Zimbabwe, psychiatrist Dixon Chibanda faced an impossible challenge: serving 14 million people with only twelve psychiatrists nationwide. After a young woman committed suicide because she couldn't afford the $15 bus fare to see him, Chibanda created the "Friendship Bench"-simple wooden benches where grandmothers trained in basic cognitive behavioral therapy could listen to young women suffering from depression (locally called "Kufungisisa" or "thinking too much"). This accessible approach has spread to 70 communities, with grandmothers treating 70,000 patients through weekly sessions. Clinical results published in the Journal of the American Medical Association show these grandmothers are five times more effective than doctors at preventing suicidal thoughts.
Sometimes creativity means elevating your problem above others. When the bridge collapsed in tiny Vulcan, West Virginia (population: twenty families), children risked their lives crossing railroad tracks to reach school. After exhausting all conventional channels, "mayor" John Robinette wrote to the Russian embassy asking if their foreign aid budget could build a bridge America couldn't afford. When a Russian reporter sought permission to visit, the U.S. government panicked at the potential worldwide embarrassment. Within hours, $1.3 million was approved for a new bridge. Robinette had brilliantly elevated his small problem above all others by changing the context-exactly what creative thinkers do.
Girl Scout Danielle Lei demonstrated pure creativity when selling cookies outside a San Francisco marijuana dispensary. Instead of traditional door-knocking, she positioned her delicious cookies exactly where customers would be most receptive-as they left with purchases that stimulate appetite. She sold 117 packs in just two hours, creating a perfect monopoly at the moment of consumer need. Without fancy departments or strategies, she'd brilliantly worked out product, consumer, advantage, and opportunity through pure creative thinking.
3장
The Art of Creative Problem-Solving
Two seemingly unrelated problems can often combine to create an elegant solution. Consider America's two million stray dogs euthanized yearly and prison inmates with nothing but time. The Massachusetts Department of Correction partnered with rescue charity "Don't Throw Us Away" to create a program where inmates volunteer to share cells with dogs for eight weeks, handling all training and care. The results transformed both parties-hardened criminals showed tenderness they couldn't display to fellow inmates while feeling sympathy for creatures who'd "had a rougher life than they had." As one inmate said, "When you're in prison you put a wall up. A dog is a live being that trusts you totally, so you trust the dog." While prisoners rehabilitated dogs, the dogs simultaneously rehabilitated the prisoners.
Sometimes creativity means inventing history. The quintessentially English "Ploughman's Lunch" of cheese, bread, and ale that farmers supposedly enjoyed after working the fields wasn't traditional at all-it was invented in 1960 by the Milk Marketing Board and J. Walter Thompson agency to increase cheese sales. They faced a challenge: how to sell plain Cheddar cheese in pubs with no kitchens? Their solution was brilliant-repackage simple bread and cheese as a historical tradition, making it seem wholesome rather than boring. They printed 5,000 bar-top cards announcing "the traditional Ploughman's Lunch," and gradually it became part of England's culinary heritage with celebrity chefs offering their own interpretations.
Fear can be a powerful creative driver. Steve Jobs transformed Apple by embracing his fear of Nokia's simple music download feature. While others saw nothing threatening, Jobs recognized the existential danger to the iPod business and launched the iPhone in response. By 2013, while iPod revenue had dropped to $2.3 billion, iPhone revenue had exploded to $91 billion. Apple became the world's largest smartphone manufacturer while Nokia barely exists anymore-mainly because Jobs was frightened and they weren't. Like evolutionary biology teaches: species that assume every shape might be a bear rather than a rock will be wrong most times but will survive when it really matters.
When faced with problems you can't stop, creative thinking means steering them in a new direction. When a small German town couldn't prevent neo-Nazis from marching to Rudolf Hess's grave, they found an ingenious solution: they turned the march against itself. Local businesses now donate ten euros to EXIT (a group helping de-radicalize youths) for every meter marched, transforming the neo-Nazis into unwitting fundraisers for their own opposition. The townspeople celebrate with rainbow confetti and humorous signs tracking the fundraising progress. Whether the neo-Nazis march or not, the village wins-they couldn't stop the march, so they changed what it meant.
4장
Communication That Connects
During the 2003 Iraq war, American forces faced a critical challenge: how to help ordinary soldiers recognize and capture Saddam Hussein's 50 key regime members. Lieutenant Hans Mumm solved this brilliantly by understanding what soldiers actually wanted rather than what the military wanted them to do. Knowing soldiers spend downtime gambling and carefully study playing cards, Mumm created a special deck with the 52 most important Iraqi leaders, ranked by importance. Saddam Hussein became the Ace of Clubs, his sons were the other aces, followed by generals and torture chiefs. Soldiers didn't need to memorize unpronounceable names-they could simply report finding "the King of Spades." By war's end, this creative media solution helped locate most targets: 13 were killed, 29 captured, 4 released, and only 6 escaped.
When Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper campaigned for mining reforms in 18th century Britain, he discovered that child deaths alone weren't persuasive enough to Victorian audiences. However, his revelation that women worked half-naked alongside completely nude men caused moral outrage. This scandal-not the deaths-prompted laws banning women and children from mines entirely. The lesson: to persuade an audience, we must understand what truly matters to them, not what we think should matter.
William Golding's novel was rejected by twenty publishers before Faber & Faber accepted it. While the editor liked the book, he hated its original title "Strangers from Within." After rejecting over twenty alternative titles that summarized the story about children on an island, another editor suggested "Lord of the Flies"-a title that didn't mention islands, children, or any plot elements, yet captured the book's unsettling mood. This non-literal title helped the book sell millions and become a curriculum staple. The lesson: our creative job isn't to summarize content but to create impact-to stand out, provoke, get noticed, and be remembered.
James Watt didn't invent the steam engine-he reinvented it by adding a separate cooling cylinder and flywheel, making it 75% more coal-efficient. His marketing genius showed when selling to existing engine users by offering to split the coal savings. But his true brilliance came when convincing horse users to switch. He invented the concept of "Horse Power"-a comparison everyone understood-by calculating that one horse could lift 550 foot-pounds per second. This allowed him to explain that his non-stop engines could replace hundreds of horses. Two centuries later, Steve Jobs used the same principle when introducing the iPod not with technical specifications but with "a thousand songs in your pocket."
5장
Impact Through Demonstration
Barney the parrot at Warwickshire Wildlife Sanctuary became infamous for his shocking vocabulary, telling the mayor's wife to "fuck off," insulting the vicar, cursing at policemen, and shouting "bollocks" at Brownies. Despite breaking all the rules, Barney became the sanctuary's star attraction, featured in national newspapers and drawing record visitors. Everyone wants to see the naughty, outrageous bird rather than the perfectly behaved ones found at every other sanctuary. The lesson for creativity is clear: if we don't want to be ignored, we should be less obedient and more willing to break convention.
When London's first escalator appeared at Earl's Court station in 1911, passengers were terrified of the moving staircase. Despite reassuring notices and posters, people remained skeptical. The brilliant solution came when William 'Bumper' Harris, a one-legged employee with crutches, was stationed to ride the escalator up and down all day. Seeing him use it confidently made passengers both reassured and ashamed of their fear. This demonstration proved far more effective than any written claim. The best creative work operates the same way-through demonstration rather than empty assertions.
In the early 1800s, the Royal Navy faced a crisis as sail-powered ships became obsolete. They initially built paddle wheel steamers, but these were vulnerable to enemy fire. The screw propeller offered a better alternative-mounted underwater and leaving room for guns-but the Admirals remained skeptical despite successful trials. In 1843, they arranged a decisive test: identical warships HMS Alecto (paddle wheels) and HMS Rattler (screw propeller) were connected stern-to-stern. When both applied full power, Rattler pulled Alecto backwards at three knots, visibly demonstrating the propeller's superiority. This dramatic rational demonstration produced an emotional response that changed the entire fleet.
When potholes in Bury were being ignored by the council for months despite their danger to cyclists and motorists, one cyclist found an ingenious solution. Knowing the council was quick to remove graffiti but slow to fix potholes, he spray-painted crude genitals around each pothole, signing his work "WANKSY." The strategy worked brilliantly-potholes that had been ignored for months were repaired within 48 hours as the council rushed to remove the offensive graffiti. This illustrates a fundamental principle of effective communication: what gets action is what gets attention, and what gets attention is what gets seen.
6장
Simplicity as Strategic Advantage
Triage, from the French word "trier" meaning to sort or sift, originated as a battlefield medical practice of dividing wounded soldiers into three groups: those who will die regardless of treatment, those who will live without treatment, and those who will only survive with immediate care. This principle-concentrating resources where they'll make the greatest difference-applies perfectly to creativity. Instead of wasting effort talking to everyone, we should identify three market segments: core non-users who won't buy regardless of our message, core users who will buy anyway, and the persuadable middle where our creativity can make a difference.
The McDonald brothers-not Ray Kroc-were the true creative geniuses behind McDonald's success. Their revolutionary insight came from recognizing that 87% of their income derived from just three menu items: hamburgers, fries, and drinks. Against conventional wisdom that more choice attracts more customers, they eliminated their sprawling 27-item menu to focus exclusively on these core products. This counterintuitive reduction allowed them to prepare food before customers ordered, creating nearly instantaneous service and doubling sales. Their approach perfectly exemplified the Pareto principle-that roughly 80% of effects come from 20% of causes.
In 1956, Malcolm McLean revolutionized global shipping by solving problems others wouldn't tackle. Frustrated by the inefficient dock loading process that wasted days of his time, McLean envisioned cargo containers that could be quickly transferred between trucks and ships. Rather than just having a good idea, he methodically solved each challenge: separating containers from chassis, standardizing container sizes, and redesigning ships specifically for containers. The results were staggering-loading costs dropped from $5.86 to 16 cents per ton, ships could be loaded in a day instead of weeks, and by 2017, 90% of world goods moved by container. McLean's genius wasn't just the initial idea but his persistence in solving every problem that stood in its way.
Antanas Mockus, mathematician-turned-politician, demonstrated the power of using different approaches for different problems. After becoming Bogota's mayor, he tackled the city's problems with remarkable flexibility. For homicides, he followed data-discovering 50% of victims were intoxicated-and restricted gun carrying during festive periods and paydays, reducing murders by 70%. For traffic fatalities, he leveraged emotion by hiring mime artists to publicly shame lawbreakers, cutting deaths by 50%. For water conservation, he appealed to logic by showering with his wife on television, demonstrating efficient techniques that reduced usage by 40%. Mockus proves that the answer to "which approach is best?" is always "it depends"-the truly creative mind uses data, emotion, or logic depending on what the specific problem demands.
7장
Turning Limitations into Advantages
In 1939, Britain needed anti-shipping mines quickly, so Major Millis Jefferis enlisted magazine editors to help. Their ingenious solution combined everyday items: Woolworths aluminum washing-up bowls for the container, aniseed balls (which dissolved in seawater in exactly 35 minutes) as timing devices, and condoms to keep the detonators dry. This makeshift combination proved devastatingly effective-in one night, 14 Marine Commandoes sank seven Japanese ships. True creativity isn't about using the latest technology but looking at common objects differently. Their unfair advantage was pure creativity-seeing what everyone else had seen but thinking what no one else had thought.
Lucy Bronze of England's women's football team demonstrated a winner's mentality when she saved her team from conceding a penalty. During a match against Spain, when the referee called handball against her teammate Ellen White, Bronze calmly approached the referee and quoted back the official's own pre-match briefing about deflections not counting as handball. The referee reversed her decision. Bronze had taken careful notes during the referee's briefing-something unimaginable in the men's game. Winners are hungry for information and assume things will go wrong, while losers act like they know everything already.
At Cape Ecnomus in 256 BC, the Romans faced Carthage's superior naval force with roughly equal numbers but vastly inferior naval expertise. Rather than competing on Carthaginian terms, the Romans invented the Corvus-a 36-foot hinged bridge with a spike that locked onto enemy ships, turning naval battles into land combat where Romans excelled. By changing the game to their strengths, the Romans lost just 24 ships to Carthage's 95. This principle works in creativity too: when facing stronger competition in their natural environment, change the battlefield to one where you can't lose.
In the early 1980s, football was dying-grounds were dilapidated, attendance dwindling, and the sacred 3pm Saturday match time was untouchable. When media expert Mike Yershon suggested broadcasting live games on different days to raise money, he was thrown out of the Football League meeting for heresy. But desperation brought him back, and his plan was implemented. Rather than killing attendance as feared, TV exposure acted as advertising for football. Rights fees exploded from 5 million in 1983 to 5 BILLION by 2015. Football became the richest sport in the country with packed stadiums and season ticket waiting lists-all because Mike changed what he was told couldn't be changed. The uncomfortable truth: you can't change things without changing them.
8장
The Human Element in a Data-Driven World
When Air Canada Flight 143's sophisticated Boeing 767 ran out of fuel at 40,000 feet due to a metric conversion error, all the advanced computer systems died. Captain Robert Pearson saved 69 lives not with technology but with his hobby experience as a glider pilot. Using the "forward slip" maneuver he'd learned towing gliders-something commercial pilots weren't taught-he successfully landed the 100-ton aircraft at an abandoned airbase. The lesson for creativity is clear: when solving problems, don't be seduced by technology and data. Your best bet is always people with brains and experience.
While councils spent fortunes removing illegal fly-posters (250,000 in Camden alone), Oadby and Wigston Borough Council found a brilliantly creative solution. Instead of thinking like prey, they thought like predators. For just 240, they printed 1,200 bright orange strips saying "CANCELLED" to place over the posters. This reversed the problem completely-suddenly the fly-posters were rushing to tear down their own advertisements, terrified they would drive people away from their events. Within eight weeks, fly-posting dropped to zero. The creative breakthrough came from asking: "How can we make the offenders want to take those posters down themselves?"
Jerry Weintraub, who managed Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra and produced Ocean's 11, learned his legendary selling skills from watching his father sell ordinary gemstones. His father transformed a mediocre star sapphire into "The Star of Ardaban" through pure showmanship-handcuffing its case to his wrist, arranging Brinks trucks with armed guards, and alerting local press. The stone created such fascination in small Midwest towns that dealers who previously wouldn't see him now eagerly bought his entire inventory of ordinary gems. The sapphire itself never sold-it was just the story that opened doors. People don't buy the object; they buy the story around it.
In the 2005 European Cup final, Liverpool faced AC Milan, the best team in Europe. Down 3-0 at halftime with AC Milan already celebrating, manager Rafa Benitez gave his dejected team simple advice: "Don't think about the final result. Just score one goal, and see how the game can change." This manageable goal shifted their mindset. They scored once, AC Milan wobbled, and Liverpool's confidence grew. They equalized to 3-3 and ultimately won on penalties, completing one of football's greatest comebacks. The lesson for creative challenges: when facing overwhelming problems, don't fixate on the end result. Just get one idea. See how that changes things. That first breakthrough can create momentum that transforms everything.
9장
Breaking Through Creative Blindness
Despite the NRA spending $30 million to help elect Donald Trump, gun manufacturer Remington filed for bankruptcy with $950 million in debt and a 90% profit drop. The irony? Under Obama, fear of gun control drove Americans to stockpile firearms, sending sales soaring. Under gun-friendly Trump, this "Scarcity Heuristic" vanished-with no threat to gun ownership, demand plummeted. Professor Cialdini explains this psychology: "The more difficult it is to acquire an item, the more value that item has." People often don't want something until they can't have it-which is how Obama inadvertently sold more guns than Trump.
When Coca-Cola launched Dasani water in the UK, they took tap water costing 0.03p per half-liter, filtered it, and tried selling it for 95p-a 316,600% markup. Worse, they didn't research the UK market or language differences, using their American campaign slogan "WATER WITH SPUNK" without realizing "spunk" means semen in British slang. Their ads featured models who "CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT SPUNK" and promoted "BOTTLED SPUNK" as "abundantly available." When Coca-Cola claimed filtering was necessary, Thames Water (their supplier) publicly stated that tap water was already pure. The final blow came when Dasani was found to contain illegal levels of potentially cancer-causing bromate, forcing a recall of half a million bottles. After spending 10 million on marketing, Coca-Cola demonstrated that not all marketing is good marketing.
Biologists Darrel Gwynne and David Rentz discovered male Jewel Beetles in the Australian bush attempting to mate with stubby beer bottles. The brown, dimpled bottles perfectly mimicked the larger, iridescent female beetles-creating such a powerful illusion that males clung to them even while ants devoured their exposed genitalia. This mirrors our own creative delusions, particularly our obsession with digital advertising despite mounting evidence of its flaws. We ignore studies showing 43% of mobile ad impressions are provably false, or that online ad fraud will still amount to $6.5 billion this year. Like the beetles, we cling to our illusions despite evidence that bots can create a billion false impressions every minute.
In 1973, Stanford psychology professor David Rosenhan conducted an experiment where he and volunteers got themselves admitted to psychiatric hospitals by claiming mild auditory hallucinations. Once inside, they behaved normally to see if staff would recognize their sanity. None did. Normal behaviors were pathologized: note-taking became "pathological writing behavior" and queuing for lunch was "oral-acquisition symptoms." When a prestigious teaching hospital claimed they couldn't be fooled, Rosenhan challenged them to spot his fake patients over three months. They identified 83 "fakes" or "suspects"-but Rosenhan hadn't sent any. This demonstrates confirmation bias-seeing only what confirms our preconceptions-which plagues creativity too. We often surrender to confirmation bias rather than engaging in critical thinking.
10장
The Power of Simple, Human-Centered Creativity
My Uncle Reg, a fireman, taught me to climb ladders by gripping the rungs rather than the sides-the safer "fireman's way" versus the quicker "builder's way." This simple mnemonic has stayed with me for decades. Richard Shotton's research shows people remember claims better when they rhyme, yet rhyming has fallen out of fashion. Great memorable slogans like "Beanz Meanz Heinz" used simple memory devices, but today's creative professionals prefer to intellectualize with strategy, sociology, and behavioral economics-anything but straightforward communication. For fast-moving consumer goods seen on posters we drive by in seconds, we need fast-moving advertising with systems that assist memory, not subtle messaging requiring decoding.
Brian Clough taught young footballer John McGovern a powerful lesson about simplicity. When McGovern liked to dribble, Clough had him run to a corner flag and back twice-once with the ball and once without. The obvious difference in speed made his point clear: "Pass the fucking ball and run, don't dribble it." This embarrassingly simple demonstration stuck with McGovern for his entire career. Under Clough's leadership, McGovern followed him to Derby County and then Nottingham Forest, where both provincial clubs achieved remarkable success-each winning the First Division and Forest even claiming back-to-back European Cup victories. While stupid people think complicated is clever, smart people know you have to go beyond complicated to reach simple.
The Russians successfully hacked NATO's "impenetrable" computer network in Kabul not through sophisticated digital means but by understanding human behavior. They simply placed virus-infected thumb drives in kiosks outside NATO headquarters, knowing Americans would buy them and bring them inside. Once inserted into NATO computers, the virus spread and forwarded secret information to Russian computers. This breach wasn't discovered until 2008 by the NSA in operation "Buckshot Yankee." The incident demonstrates how blind reliance on technology becomes a weakness-NATO's sophisticated digital barriers were useless against this simple human-centered approach. As nuclear physicist Ernest Rutherford said, "We have no money so we shall have to think."
My Uncle Billy transformed his window-cleaning business into a successful office-cleaning company, then cleverly navigated a recession by deliberately making his operation look cheaper. He removed uniforms, painted vans different colors, eliminated logos, and told clients they'd "cut costs to the bone." The strategy worked brilliantly-he kept existing customers, gained new ones, and even raised prices without complaint. Though Uncle Billy had never studied marketing or behavioral economics, he intuitively understood the framing effect that academics would later document. True creativity is simply street-smarts-understanding how people actually think and behave rather than how we think they should.
