So, my English teacher showed us this TED Talk Video and I found it incredibly interesting. It’s called “Life Lessons from an Ad Man”. Here, Rory Sutherland talks about what he thinks about what advertising is and how advertisers fix things and deal with people vs other professionals. 

I find TED Talks to be not only educational, but incredibly entertaining and fulfilling as well.

Being as interested as I am in advertising, this certain talk spoke to me. What they create is “intangible” or “perceived” value. It’s genius, honestly. It’s not what you market, but how you market it. 

 His example about making the train ride from Paris to London more enjoyable was too funny to me. It really shows you the different types of minds that we’ve got floating around in the world. Engineers had the idea to shorten the commute by 40 minutes and spending six billion pounds in doing so… Mr. Sutherland’s idea was to pay supermodels to walk up and down the aisles handing out free alcohol to passengers…. More cost effective, he suggested.

Anyone who can make a intangible idea more plausible and attractive than a tangible one is an absolute genius. 

He also talks about placebos…. And placebo education. Placebos are so interesting to look at. They prove that perception is really what it’s all about… If you’re an authority figure and you tell someone something; they’re most likely going to believe you. The subconscious will take over and make you think something is going on that may or may not even be true. This can be positive or negative. 

So many problems in life can be “tinkered by perception.” You can make something seem so much better than it is by employing an authority figure to endorse it and suddenly it’s magic, perfection… It seems much better than it actually is. I mean, potatoes. Potatoes went from a commoners’ food to a royal food; just because the authority figure said so. As commoners’ food, nobody wanted it, but in a “Royal Potato Patch”, it became gold. “If something is worth guarding, it’s worth stealing.”

All. Value. Is. Relative.

“Persuasion is often better than compulsion.”

Are you guys listening to this? There is so much value in ideas and intangible things.

I see it as the way of the future. It’s already started with the “Green Movement” and is only going to continue to flourish. Even in my college course guides, where they tell you what sort of careers you may go into for certain majors, they have a mark for “bright outlook” and “green occupation”. Those particular fields make much more money than the traditional careers they list and for the most part, are listed under the same careers. For example “Green Marketer”; a position that is expected to grow rapidly over the next couple of years. Everything seems to be going that way. I’m starting to think… Maybe I should be thinking about intangible solutions, rather than tangible. Swindling or not. If that’s where the future is going to be, so why don’t we prepare ourselves now? This sent me a pretty big wakeup call. I love watching TED videos like this because they always give me a positive, new perspective.
How about you guys? Thoughts? Maybe a favorite TED Talks video? Let me know here! I’d love to check it out.