Rory Sutherland is a British advertising executive and writer who has spent his career at Ogilvy, where he became vice chairman of Ogilvy UK and co-founded its behavioural science practice. He is the author of Alchemy and The Wiki Man, and writes a column for The Spectator.
Brian Rose has interviewed Sutherland twice on London Real, in 2015 and 2019. They have talked about branding, how advertising moved online, behavioural economics, why people make irrational decisions and what AI cannot do in marketing.
Both interviews are listed below in order with a short summary.
Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don’t Make Sense (2019). The best summary of his thinking on behavioural science and marketing. For his career in advertising, watch Mad Men (2015).
Sutherland argues that traditional economic models, which assume people decide rationally, miss most of what drives behaviour. Emotion, context and perception often matter more than objective facts.
Through the behavioural science practice he co-founded at Ogilvy, he looks for small changes in context that can have a large effect on the decisions people make, often far more cheaply than changing the product itself.
Speaking in 2019, he said a weed is simply a flower without an advertising budget. His point is that how something is framed and perceived can create real value.
In the same interview he argued that AI lacks a skill that marketing needs: the ability to understand the odd, illogical things that actually move people.
Rory Sutherland is a British advertising executive and writer, born in 1965, who has spent his career at Ogilvy, where he became vice chairman of Ogilvy UK and co-founded its behavioural science practice. He is the author of Alchemy and writes a column for The Spectator.
Across two interviews in 2015 and 2019, Sutherland talked about branding, the rise of online advertising, behavioural economics, why people act irrationally, AI and his book Alchemy.
Start with Alchemy from 2019 for his ideas on behavioural science. Watch Mad Men from 2015 for his career in advertising.
Twice: in June 2015 and August 2019.
Alchemy, published in 2019, argues that many successful ideas look illogical on paper because human behaviour is not driven by pure logic. Sutherland uses examples from advertising and behavioural science to show how changing perception can solve problems.
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