Alchemy in Marketing with Rory Sutherland | Strategy Sessions Podcast

Strategy Sessions

Rory Sutherland is, perhaps, the closest thing to industry royalty that we have in marketing. He’s Vice Chairman of Ogilvy UK, a best-selling author, owner of one of the best ⁠TED Talks⁠ you’ll ever see and the man behind ⁠MAD Fest⁠ a marketing, advertising and disruption event taking place in London 4 – 6 July.

In this episode we discuss:

• Lionfish, toothfish and pilchards – how rebranding fish drives sales
• Humans have strange value systems
• The map is not the territory – Alfred Korzybski
• The relationship between innovation and marketing
• All decisions look different with hindsight
• Rory being a heretic
• Mercedes v Toyota and how they manufacture quality without trade offs
• Why people buy expensive wines
• How to get young people to invest in pensions
• When you shouldn’t use nudges
• Why economists are the worst people on the planet
• Why the Uber map is genius
• Why random brands exist on Amazon
• The benefits of being on Chris Evans’ breakfast show
• How the Walls Viennetta came about
• How managers can convince the board to invest in radical thinking

Rory Sutherland

Rory is the Vice Chairman of Ogilvy, an attractively vague job title which has allowed him to co-found a behavioral science practice within the agency.

He works with a consulting practice of psychology graduates who look for ‘unseen opportunities’ in consumer behaviour - these are the often small contextual changes which can have enormous effects on the decisions people make - for instance tripling the sales rate of a call centre by adding just a few sentences to the script. Put another way, lots of agencies will talk about "bought, owned and earned" media: we also look for "invented media" and "discovered media": seeking out those unexpected (and inexpensive) contextual tweaks that transform the way that people think and act.

It is a hugely valuable activity - but, alas, not particularly lucrative. This is because clients generally do not have budgets for solving problems they did not know they had.

Before founding Ogilvy’s Behavioural Practice, Rory was a copywriter and creative director at Ogilvy for over 20 years, having joined as a graduate trainee in 1988. He has variously been President of the IPA, Chair of the Judges for the Direct Jury at Cannes, and has spoken at TED Global. He writes regular columns for the Spectator, Market Leader and Impact, and also occasional pieces for Wired. He is the author of three books: The Wiki Man, available on Amazon (at prices between £1.96 and £2,345.54, depending on whether the algorithm is having a bad day), and the best-selling Alchemy, The surprising Power of Ideas which don't make Sense, published in the UK and US in May 2019, and, co-written with his former colleague Pete Dyson, the newly released Transport For Humans on the behavioural science of transport.

Rory is married to a vicar and has twin daughters. He lives in the former home of Napoleon III - unfortunately in the attic. He is a trustee of the Benjamin Franklin House in London and a Patron of Rochester Cathedral.

Find Rory on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ or ⁠Twitter⁠

Rory’s Other Stuff

• ⁠MAD Fest⁠
• ⁠Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense⁠
• ⁠Transport for Humans: Are We Nearly There Yet?⁠

Andi Jarvis

If you have any questions or want to talk about anything that was discussed in the show, the best place to get me is on ⁠Twitter⁠ or ⁠LinkedIn⁠.

If you don’t get the podcast emailed to you (and a monthly newsletter) you can ⁠sign up for it on the Eximo Marketing website.⁠

Make sure you subscribe to get the podcast every fortnight and if you enjoyed the show, please give it a 5* rating.

Andi Jarvis, ⁠Eximo Marketing.⁠