The psychology of digital marketing. Rory Sutherland, Ogilvy digital marketing

Out of the box thinkers run the world

Rory makes marketing very engaging therefore he lives his teachings

Anyone know of another recording of this by a person who knows how to run a camera so that we can actually see all of his slides?

Man, this guy is good. He’s somehow convinced me I want an air fryer.

Glad to finally run into someone I agree with. Hoping to get to this level sooner than later

Mistake number one: basing everything on evolutionary psychology. Aside from that, this man is clearly a genius and has level 1 billion charisma. Awesome talk!

This was so good. Thanks.

man, I appreciate the work but there are jus so many BAD assumptions to unpack here, that lead to horrible business decisions..
1) @46:27 absolutely no one wants to spend a vacation day waiting for the cable guy… I mean, wow, the lapse of judgement there is daunting.

We believe that this talk is a must-heard.

The camera operator was useless. IT'S A PRESENTATION YOU DOLT

I found this old video from 1958. Called (trackdown the end of the world) it is worth a watch believe me. it's about trump they use his name.

Well done Sir!

this guy giving a ted talk with his belly hanging out

AMAZING presentation. Human psychology is the most important thing to understand as a marketer. Perception is key. Really enjoyed the mirror example

At 4:06 Rory Sutherland said, You can either 1: Find out what people want and work out a clever way to deliver it to them. 2. Or you can find out what you can deliver and find a clever way of making people want it.
I think my fellow video watchers want important notes and highlights from this video so I'm going to deliver it to you with time stamps. Enjoy : )

0:11 Richard Thaler won a Nobel prize on behavioural economics
0:19 Behavioural economics observes what people ACTUALLY do in PRACTICE. It's opposed to developing fictional mathematical models that DECIDES what people SHOULD do instead. Proper Economics is ridiculous.
0:46 Charlie Munger's quote, "If economics isn't behavioural, I don't know what the hell is?"
1:29 Funny example from the movie Airplane.
2:11 There are areas of life where complete logic and developing objective measures of reality works.
2:31 However, there are large areas of life where that's the worst thing you can do.
2:41 There's a distinction between how to do ATC and how to run a military. One require precision and predictability, the other requires the opposite.
2:59 You can't be logical and efficient if you do military strategy because you'll become predictable.
3:09 So there's an evolutionary reason why humans aren't logical and consistent because those that are would be predictable, a total sucker.
4:06 There are two ways you can create new, economical value. You can either 1: Find out what people want and work out a clever way to deliver it to them. 2. Or you can find out what you can deliver and find a clever way of making people want it.
4:26 The economic value is just as great either way.
4:41 Alphabet x looks for moonshots, where you take something and change it by an order of magnitude. Make something 10x cheaper, better, cheaper etc.
5:21 Improving objective reality by a factor of 10 has become increasingly harder. It's easier to improve subjective reality.
6:10 Instead of making trains 10x faster, how about we make them 10 times more enjoyable, like providing wifi.
6:40 For eg: if you hired supermodels to serve drinks, people would actually ask for the trains to be slowed down 😉
6:55 No one asks for psychological innovation. It's usually the last resort. 🙁
8:51 Economists assume people have perfect info and perfect trust. So they see marketing as an inefficiency that doesn't need to exist. So everyone knows exactly what they want to buy and how much they want to pay for.
9:28 For most of evolutionary history, we only had 10% of the info to make the perfect decision.
10:23 A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points.
12:40 Yield management will allow you to get on trains earlier if you arrive earlier. It's a better and cheaper solution.
15:23 Train overcrowding problem. 10% of the people standing 10% of the time is not the same as 1 person standing 100% of the time.
16:06 If you solve the problem for the worst affected, you've solved the problem.
17:43 German physicist quote, "You're not thinking. You're merely being logical."
22:27 TVs are designed for higher apes. They only have three colours. The brain is fooled by it. Marketing is just like that. There's no point in being objective. Only perception matters.
26:32 Wine tastes better when you pour it from a heavier bottle. Pain killers are more effective if they are branded. They are more effective if you tell they're expensive. Chocolates taste sweeter if they are round. Your car drives better after you've got it cleaned. 50% extra free feels better than 33% off.
28:31 Reinforcing visual example
31:17 Our brain is designed to accentuate differences/ contrast between things.
31:45 Examples
32:15 Our perception of price is completely relative.
34:29 Nothing hot about chilies. Nothing cool about Menthol.
35:25 Nature just produces a fruit that feels hot since it can't really produce a hot fruit.
35:38 So there's the thing and there's the perception of the thing. And the only thing that matters is the perception of the thing. And the connection between the thing and perception is not exact.
35:56 Austrian economists believe value is highly subjective. Therefore they can be well disposed to marketing and advertising.
36:12 There is food itself and the context in which it's consumed. Ex Michelin-star meal in a restaurant smelling of sewage. So context matters.
36:22 There is no perceived objective thing in the human mind. Everything is mediated by environment, context and setting. And everything that's set is affected by who says it. Paying attention to something and the kind of attention you pay, changes the nature of the thing.
36:54 Treating humans like weighing scales is completely wrong.
38:03 Ed Shareen's Eg of however good a product is objectively if you market it poorly, it's worthless.
44:00 People themselves don't know why they feel a particular way. So they post rationalize.
45:30 Evolution didn't need to provide an explanation for emotions. And it relies on emotions over rational reactions. Cos emotions are inherited. Rational stuff needs to be taught.
47:00 People hate the uncertainty that comes with the delivery window.
47:40 London UG reduced uncertainty by providing boards that displayed when the train was coming. So you can create high level of satisfaction without high level of cost.
48:30 Elevator example.
53:30 Pills example
1:00:00 people actually make diet coke/ redbull and other medicinal wine taste disgusting so people perceived a medicinal value.
1:02:02 Airlines had to explain why their airline was cheap by highlighting the negatives. So marketers have the role of justifying higher price or destigmatising a lower one.
1:04:00 Wine example
1:06:00 Flight example
1:09:00 Ferrari example/ Framing
1:11:00 Real-life decision-making is 2 d. Avg vs. the worst-case scenario.
1:15:00 People buy from big brands to minimize risk.
1:19:00 Cooperation increases in repeated games. Long-term selfishness is indistinguishable from cooperation. Short-term selfishness is indistinguishable from conflict.
1:22:50 Costly signaling theory
1:23:45 Nobody sends a wedding invitation over email even though it's the most efficient way to send it. TV ads are popular because they are costlier.
1:25:00 We shouldn't think about advertising as messaging but as signaling.
1:26:30 Test counterintuitive things because your competitors won't.
1:27:10 Don't be logical becasue that's exactly what they'll expect you to do.

Thank you!

I love this! I can't wait till I can attend in person talks like this. I am hoping the rest of my team gets as much out of this as I did.

the drink he is talking about in context to the coke example is red bull

Why didn’t I see this earlier …..

Rory is the OG

Looks like "Hamish & Andy" were trying too hard to "go viral"

He apologizes for taking up our time but the information is gold

The reason psychological innovation doesn't always stick is that sometimes people dont want pleasure and just want speed. I get the idea but it only sits in a world that is totally fixated on experience and not cost. he raises a compelling argument with clever thought experiments but it only works on side of the coin, which is focused on experience over cost. No one is going to pick super models on a train if you are married and have to close a deal in 10 minutes.

Isn't behavioral economics as aiming to understand the world from that same vantage point quite similar to Mises idea of Praxeology?