Learnings from Rory Sutherland: Leveraging Ideas That Don’t Make Sense And How To Bypass Reason
An icon in the advertising world with a zestful personality that can capture the attention of anyone, when Rory speaks you feel like you want to take notes of every word he’s saying. Full of humorous comparisons, he’s the guy that teaches us how to use our irrationality. Here are some thought-provoking ideas from his book, Alchemy:
1. Brands have become an inherent part of our lives
“Brands are just products with no price tag… People don’t buy images or messages; they buy better versions of themselves.”
2. Making it personal is an investment, not a cost
“Concentrate on what you can deliver to each person, not the group. By selling one at a time, you can deliver more than by selling ten at a time… Every relationship is an individual one; every customer has different wants and needs; never forget that they all use your product or service in different ways.”
3. The key to a successful brand is:
“Every marketer can sell a product, but to create an emotional bond, you need to be able to give something away… It is much harder and more effective to make someone feel they deserve something than that they simply want it.”
4. Stop being afraid of addressing tensions
“The more pleasure you promise, the less effective your advertising is likely to be. Aim for people’s fears or their pain rather than their desires or pleasures… The best marketing only has to work once — it just sucks people in by tugging at something they already feel but don’t yet understand. Once trust is established, people will buy almost anything.”
5. Price vs value
“It is often easier to make something very, very cheap than it is to make what was expensive (but good) much cheaper and still be profitable… We think we want quality — but actually, we just want value: we don’t want a fair price, we want a great deal.”
These are some of the topics that Rory explores in his book “Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don’t Make Sense”
By Teodora Turcu