
Rory Sutherland on The Psychology of Advertising and more [audio] - da02
http://theknowledgeproject.libsyn.com/rory-sutherland-on-the-psychology-of-advertising-complex-evolved-systems-reading-decision-making
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pixelmonkey
I am only 15m into this podcast, but I know I will enjoy it.

An executive at ad firm Ogilvy & Mather discusses the economic philosophy of
advertising.

He refers to the best advertising as "the creation of intangible value from
existing products/services." An example he gives is Apple making the
public/market find value in interfaces and user experience, while other
products in the category are judged by clock speed and similar technical
specs. Or, it is a craft lager being judged by how it was created and the
story behind the recipe, rather than just the taste.

"The biggest source of economic waste is when a great invention is marketed in
the wrong way. It is like eating at a Michelin star restaurant where the
dining room smells a little of sewage. It doesn't matter how damn good the
food is; it's the context that makes the overall experience."

~~~
guiambros
Rory Sutherland is a truly unique guy. I saw him speaking a few times while
worked at a sister company, and was always impressed by his ability to pack so
much information in his talks, and so eloquently. Plus, he's hilarious.

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indescions_2017
From around the 1:03:00 mark:

    
    
       In advertising, we want people to do this thing.
    
       What prior stimuli will we need to get them to do it?
    
       People won't use moist lavatory paper! That's one
    
       of my totem obsessions, by the way. What the hell?
    
       I mean what is it about the West that thinks it's ok
    
       to wipe your ass with dry paper? We need Japanese 
    
       toilets. If I were Trump that would be day *&^%ing 
    
       one, ok...But for whatever reason, people don't
    
       really buy moist lavatory paper. So I've got to ask,
    
       as an advertising person: what prior conditions might 
    
       make this more likely? Let's hypothesize a bit. You
    
       might say: actually it's the shelving! Because when
    
       you look at supermarket shelves, we instinctively 
    
       derive social information from the relative 
    
       prominence and proliferation of wet versus dry 
    
       paper. There a ton of dry rolls stretching as far 
       
       as the eye can see. On the top shelf, there are two 
    
       meagre little packets of moist lavatory paper.
    
       That means its basically for perverts or people with
    
       abnormal medical conditions.
    

Basis of _Nudge_. Another book he recommends is _The Mating Mind: How Sexual
Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature_. As well as some of the
"happiness literature" such as Meik Wiking's _The Little Book of Hygge: Danish
Secrets to Happy Living_. So, feel free to trust your gut. But still employ
split A/B tests!

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smcnally
Sutherland makes strong cases for focusing on experience & the creation of
perceived value especially as opposed to more purely engineering solutions.
Recommend seeing Rory Sutherland's comments about supermodels and Chateau
Petrus on the EuroRail

[https://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_sweat_the_small_st...](https://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_sweat_the_small_stuff/transcript?language=en)

[http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_a...](http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_an_ad_man.html)

[http://www.cyberfootprint.eu/rory-sutherland-perspective-
is-...](http://www.cyberfootprint.eu/rory-sutherland-perspective-is-
everything/)

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TamDenholm
I absolutely love Rory Sutherlands talks on Behavioral Economics, you can find
excellent talks of his on youtube. Hes great at explaining on how to think in
different ways. Excellent for people looking to learn about alternative
viewpoints to things.

