Rory Sutherland's Blog - All Comments

re: The IPA, Oxbridge and Lap Dancers

richard morris — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:01:29 GMT

Rory - this reminds me of the traditional maxim about the difference between Oxford students and Cambridge students; oxford students walk round they like they own the place. cambridge stuents walk round like they don't care who owns the place.

re: The IPA, Oxbridge and Lap Dancers

Alex Jenkins — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:45:01 GMT

The Professor Miller talk is up as a film on the IPA website here: http://is.gd/4LQzY

re: What the fashion industry can teach us about advertising awards - and it isn't pleasant.

Kevin Gordon — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 11:03:52 GMT

Yes, UGG's aren't sexy, but they are comfortable. The same could be said about doing good work for the big, the bad, and the ugly clients. They may not be the most attractive pieces of business to work on, but they certainly help create a comfortable environment for agencies to speculate in top drawer work. Which is the most important part of a flower? The stork, the root, or the flower? Tunnel vision is no good for any agency. Especially now.

re: The Day the Copy Died.....

Kevin Gordon — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 09:16:54 GMT

David Ogilvy was born in "The age of questions."

Today we live in "The age of answers".

I'm not saying it's the answer, I'm just stating a fact.

Google, Wiki, Bing, provide answers at the cost of a whole story.

If knowledge is power, what this means is we are building sky-scrapers of information on a hierarchy of wafer-thin ideas.

That's a very wobbly and unsustainable thought!

We all know what happened to Monty Python's

Mr Creosote when he made room for

"Just one little waffer thin mint".

re: 200 years after his birth, will marketers discover Darwin?

B P — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:59:11 GMT

Ah Rory... I'll field a quick question.

Who is worth more, the homeless guy that feeds the pigeons or the leader of a multi billion dollar ad agency?

Wait for it...

Who is worth more, for the pigeons.

We're all primates, the more we can Monkey on the better we'll be :o)

re: The IPA, Oxbridge and Lap Dancers

Kevin Gordon — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:37:20 GMT

Hi Rory,

Intelligence is measurable in many ways.

Learning happens in many forms.

Neural Networks have been around for years.

Computers, and the worldwide web is based on

the workings of our own human brains.

We have created nothing.

It just happens to all be there for us to discover.

The greatest minds in advertising are the ones that

can pick up a discarded plastic bottle and turn it

into something else.

A bird table for instance.

They are the ilateral thinkers

inventing with commonsense.

I understand your concern.

In many cases today

Execution is killing the big idea.

The cart is before the horse.

Baby names search - Search for Rory

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re: The IPA, Oxbridge and Lap Dancers

Jonny Gibaud — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:54:37 GMT

Just wanted to say that I saw you at Ted and thought you were awesome.

re: Open source brief number one. Solve the "problem" of saving.

Vincent van der Lubbe — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:35:02 GMT

Yes, default options are normally good. But why would you save something when you don't know what for? Then you are likely to spend it on the next bigger thing (car, home decoration etc.).

There are very little rewards for saving, the interface is horrible. Everytime I look in my dull bank account I try to leave as quickly as possible (might also have other reasons :-): You can't get your goals and money visualized nicely in your online-bank account (it's growing, oh my God!). There are no "you are here (x % completion)". There are no "sound effects" when you put money in your online piggy bank (sounds are one of the strongest factors in gaming). No smilies or non smilies. No thank you's for saving. Accounts look like blue screens designed for accountants and focus on payments instead of goals, savings, spendings and risks.

There is no context provided around it, which frames the mindset into doing something for your goals, avoid poverty, save for your family and such. And there is tons more, which can be optimized. Until now banks seem to be more focused on Assets under Management and product and interest margins than helping their clients to save more (it's not a KPI in banks). I'd like to take on the challenge to really change something here. Where do I start?

re: The IPA, Oxbridge and Lap Dancers

Bob Ashwood — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:22:54 GMT

Whilst I missed Mr Miller's IPA address, I've read his latest book. A breath of fresh air. On the subject of Oxbridgers in advertising, it has always been my experience that they are suits or writers. However, I recently discovered that an art director I know went to Cambridge! I should have guessed. He doesn't half talk a lot! Victor, Rory has given me reason to liken researchers to lap-dancers. They can inspire tumescence but seldom guarantee consummation.

re: What the fashion industry can teach us about advertising awards - and it isn't pleasant.

Ruby Rosamund — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:53:10 GMT

Is it OK if the Chip Shop makes millions? I hate to think I'm going into an industry that is loathe to support small businesses. Why let KFC have all the fun?

Lizzie - I go to the corner shop in my slippers...

re: The IPA, Oxbridge and Lap Dancers

Victor Houghton — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:14:00 GMT

Having attended Miller's IPA talk I'm pleased that I can now step back from my cynical view that advertising is happy to rely on the type of behavioural research where interpretation is more of an art. Without applying some real science a lot of the trends stuff we generate is just bollocks.

re: The IPA, Oxbridge and Lap Dancers

CHRIS BARRACLOUGH — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:42:12 GMT

What chance have you got against a tie and a crest?

re: The Day the Copy Died.....

JACKY BYGRAVE — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 09:22:36 GMT

Whenever I research Print I will initially ask people to try and spend as much or as little time on reading/looking at the ad as they may in real life...(of course it's still artificial etc). This tends to show that some people do indeed love words and engage with copy, some don't and that it all depends a bit on category and er, how well written the copy is.

As to the tyre kicking types, one politely ignores them when getting feedback to copy. I don't think we've ever given feedback on print saying copy didn't matter, but have come across agencies who really wanted to downplay copy especially internationally, especially when nobody had a clue what it was trying to say. I know researchers make good whipping boys and girls but this one seems much more self inflicted - as per the rest of your blog.

Copywriter RIP? –

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