Psychology In The World Of Advertising - Rory Sutherland - #049

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hi, friends. My guest this week is Rory Sutherland, the vice chairman of Ogilvy Advertising. Now, before most podcasts start, there's a little bit of foreplay backwards and forwards between myself and the guest, catching up and talking about what we're gonna talk about and stuff like that. With Rory, it was more analogous to me trying to step onto a train going high speed, and he just began. So, I started recording straight away. Also, Rory had a British gas technician come around to sort out his boiler partway through. So, you will go through the adventure that is Rory's boiler, plus all of the amazing things that we spoke about today. He is an absolute master of behavioral economics and the psychology of advertising. Anyone who has ever bought anything in a shop should listen to this podcast.
I'm not going to pontificate anymore because it's just fantastic. Enjoy.

**Rory Sutherland** (1:20)
I always regard consumer capitalism as kind of the Galapagos Islands of understanding human motivation. Because just as evolution throws up things, the duck-billed platypus, the kangaroo, et cetera, that don't really make much sense.
In the same way, consumer capitalism is interesting, both the things which shouldn't be successful, but are. And the classic example of that is Red Bull. But, I mean, you could actually, if you think about some of the greatest business successes of the last 10, 20, 30 years, I mean, going back further, denim, for example, doesn't really make sense as a fabric. The popularity of denim doesn't make any sense. It kind of fades, it looks a bit shit. It was manufactured as a wagon cover, and then worn as overalls by indigent laborers. You would have expected silk to have become big, and the trouser front. But nope, it's not silk, it's jeans. Then you've got things, again, if you've made a business case for Wikipedia, and your last slide had said, and the best thing is that everybody's going to write this for free, okay? Basically, you would have been shown out of the room. It's completely insane. Red Bull, again, doesn't taste very nice, cost a fortune, comes in a tiny can. You know, no one making a case for that really would get anywhere. No one in a Soviet controlled economy, no one would have sat down with the Supreme Soviet and said, well, for our next seven-year plan, what the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics really needs is an overpriced, disgusted-tasting drink. But at the same time, I think it's interesting because I think what capitalism and evolution does is it throws up bonkers successes. But there are also things that fail that logically shouldn't. I mean, in the case of, say, evolution, why is pathogenesis, or why is, in other words, asexual reproduction so very rare?

**Chris Williamson** (3:23)
Yeah.

**Rory Sutherland** (3:24)
Because if you want to replicate 100% of your genes, simply splitting into two is a, you would think, is a pretty cool system where the sex stuff is-

**Chris Williamson** (3:35)
Well, you only need one of you, right?

**Rory Sutherland** (3:37)
Yeah, exactly. Off you go. What seems to happen is that when a disease hits, you all die.

**Chris Williamson** (3:45)
Non-genetic variation.

**Rory Sutherland** (3:46)
Sex is the diversity trade-off that means that some of your genes will survive. It's hedging your bets, essentially. It's covering your bases. Because you'd rather have your genes survive, split between a variety of different carriers, than put all your eggs in one basket. I think what tends to happen is you do get these asexual reproduction things happening, and they're very, very successful right up to the point where they aren't. And then when they fail, they fail spectacularly. Now, is this my... this might be, unfortunately...

**Chris Williamson** (4:21)
Is this your man from British Gas?

**Rory Sutherland** (4:23)
Hold on, I'm so sorry. I suppose it's a very authentic podcast.

**Chris Williamson** (4:28)
Absolutely authentic podcast.

**Rory Sutherland** (4:29)
I'm sorry, I better go down, won't we?

**Chris Williamson** (4:31)
No worries.

**Rory Sutherland** (4:32)
We can pause if you like.

**Chris Williamson** (4:33)
Yeah, we've paused.

**Rory Sutherland** (4:35)
Right.

**Chris Williamson** (4:37)
And we're back.

**Rory Sutherland** (4:39)
That was probably more about washbasins than you needed to hear, but there we go.

**Chris Williamson** (4:42)
Totally fine. They're a finickety and very fine-tuned, subtler device. So I wanted to talk about a news article, which I got sent yesterday. I can't believe that I've never heard of this before, but you may have done. Have you heard of the hit-to-kill phenomenon in China?

**Rory Sutherland** (4:59)
No.
So, oh, is this this thing where it's more expensive? If you hit someone and they survive, it's more expensive because you get sued.