Rory Sutherland on The Psychology of Advertising and more [audio]

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."

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!

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...

http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_a...

http://www.cyberfootprint.eu/rory-sutherland-perspective-is-...

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.