Rory Sutherland's Blog - All Comments

re: Whose idea was this?

Tom Gilbert — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 11:41:14 GMT

A great example of choice anchoring is found in restaurants. You'll note that a lot of menus have items priced in the £9-£15 range and then one dish at perhaps £22. The presence of one more expensive dish means that people will more likely order the moreexpensive dishes in the £9-£15 range. The same is true of wine lists.

re: That's why mum's gone to Finland.

NEIL DREWITT — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 10:17:49 GMT

Rory. Apropos of your comments about Teutonic porn, this only confirms the view that you'll know a nation best by its taste in ***. A visit to Japan will amply underscore this insight.

re: That's why mum's gone to Finland.

Alastair Duncan — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 11:02:05 GMT

Finns may well trust their government, but given the continuing saga of data leakage here in the UK from 'trustworthy' government departments, we've got a long way to go. Do we trust the government with our taxes because we have to, or because we prefer to?

re: A scientific approach to queueing - just what I've been waiting for.

Andy Knell — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 12:35:01 GMT

Are you moving forwards or has someone just joined on at the back?

re: That's why mum's gone to Finland.

Andy Knell — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 12:33:28 GMT

Salary linked penalties are wholly appropriate and a darn sight more effective than our flat penalty fee system. Perhaps something the FA could bear in mind when attempting to keep Premiership footballer’s in check. Drogba being fined his lunch money for throwing metal coins back into a crowd just doesn’t cut the mustard.

The UK government has given the infomediary function a very bad name in this country with a multitude of data thefts / losses over the last 12 months. Culturally the Finns are seen as careful, solid, and reliable, traits that lend themselves to a transparent data system. Not sure if the cynical Brits can accept this.

re: That's why mum's gone to Finland.

Charles Frith — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 05:44:47 GMT

Great point Rory. Before we build a consensus on how to act and manage privacy issues it may be important to explore what the word means in different cultures, and indeed whether we create more problems by facilitating secrecy. The salary transparency of Finland is a great example of information that is classed as private but really damages both working relationships and encourages lying.

I've always felt uncomfortable with urinals for privacy. Imagine the outrage if an open, partially shielded trough were laid out for women to squat over for 'natural breaks'?

That's my interesting visual of the day.

The hiking movie may seem strange but tradional pornography narrative implies that people visit other people usually in their homes and invite each other to copulate once the greetings are dispensed with.

When you say disrobed. I wonder if they kept their stout walking boots on?

re: Whose idea was this?

Matthew Tanter — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 10:53:03 GMT

As advertising broadens in scope of influence, we enter deeper into a business and discover behavioural analysis and innovation that seems crazy and new to the world of communications yet is everyday in the sphere of product innovation and design. P&G and Ideo have approached product and brand design in this manner for years. I guess what i'm trying to say is our new frontier is their homeland

What our industry we are realising is that like design communication only gets interesting not when it is made to stand out but when it is seamless with customer experience and inuitive, almost invisible.

re: Whose idea was this?

Haidong Guan — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 04:47:19 GMT

I guess in real business world, lots of great invention has been achived by trial and error. The medium trolly could originate as an experiment and turned out to be prefered by lots of customers over either basket or large trolly. Based on this encouraging observation the retailer would be glad to roll it out.

re: Who makes the better planners - Part 2......

Dave Trott — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:29:00 GMT

Matthew, I agree 100%.

Except for one man agencies like David Abbott, Robin Wight, and Tim Delaney.

re: Please can you refute this argument.

Dan Douglass — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:11:16 GMT

Interesting stuff, Rory. Here's another view espoused by philosopher John Rawls. You know more about Rawls than I do. But if I follow it (correct me if I'm wrong), he was into social fairness and justice. He envisioned a means of organising societies without existing hierarchies dictating the terms of those arrangements.Yet brands are about imposing artificial hierarchies derived from bragging rights based on intangibles. The biggest brands are religion and politics. And their brands have contributed more to the fund of human misery than most other movements. So taking Rawls at his word, what would happen if we removed all brand labels and let the consumer decide their preferences in one giant blind taste test of everything? Wouldn't that be the way to remove brand hegemony and build brands based on common and shared truths which render them 'good'?

re: Who makes the better planners - Part 2......

Matthew Andrews — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 03:46:40 GMT

Sure the great singers may also write their own songs. But they sure don't manage their own bands.

The Beatles had Paul Epstein. St Bono and his buddies have the redoubtable Paul McGuiness. Bob Dylan may have a one of pop's weaker voicers but he had one hell of a strong manager - Albert Grossman.

Creatives are paid to dream. But unless they have some doers around them, they shrivel and die.

Maybe they could survive without planners. But, it needs to be said before this "I am creative and I don't need anyone" riff goes any longer - writers and art directors never go far without a good manager.

re: Who makes the better planners - Part 2......

Rory Sutherland — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 15:25:53 GMT

It clearly worked! Martha never produced a bad song - at least not that I've heard.....

re: Who makes the better planners - Part 2......

Robin Bonn — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 13:25:29 GMT

I read an interview with Martha Reeves at the w/e. Talking about why the Vandellas records were a bit funkier than other Motown efforts, she explained that she also had an admin job at the label at the time.

Apparently making sure that the Funk Brothers got paid on time meant that they helped her with her records.

Not sure how this moves the debate on though - perhaps creatives should make planners the odd cuppa?

re: Always check your daughter's homework

John Gallen — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:52:10 GMT

:) A long winded way to have a go at procurement types and recent MBAs. The procurement types annoy me too... they know the cost of everything and the value of nothing

re: Who makes the better planners - Part 2......

Dave Trott — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 16:46:34 GMT

I just heard Lilly Allen on the radio. She said it's time to write a new album so she's going to start an unsuccessful love affair or a row with her friends.

When you're writing something to sing yourself it will be much more personal than when you're writing for someone else.

Similarly if I have to actually write the final ad that must get noticed and talked about, I will write a different brief than if I was writing the brief for someone else.

The end and the means are not as separated as they would be by having brief and planner, and ad and creative exist in silos.