Rory Sutherland highlights our neglect of psychological solutions in favour of purely technical solutions.
Rory Sutherland is a British advertising executive. He is the current Executive Creative Director of OgilvyOne.
He’s a pioneer in the fields of marketing and economics. He highlights how human perspectives are often overlooked but play such a huge role in the delivery and consumption of ‘value’.
In this TED Talk video: “The circumstances of our lives may matter less than how we see them, says Rory Sutherland. At TEDxAthens, he makes a compelling case for how reframing is the key to happiness.”
Here are some Zoom-Out highlights from Rory’s talk:
“Reality is overrated”
“The power of reframing things, cannot be overstated!”
“The power to rebrand things… cannot be overstated!
Interesting to note that Rory refers to “Rebranding” as advertising reframing?
“The value of perceived value should be treated absolutely equivalent to any other type of value.”
The value of marketing. There is value in changing the way people look at things.
“We’ve given far too much priority to engineering solutions… and not nearly enough to psychological solutions.”
“One of the problems with classical economics, is it’s absolutely preoccupied with reality, and reality isn’t a particularly good guide to human happiness.”
Happiness is often more to do with our sense of control over our predicament than the predicament itself.
“Perception is leaky.” i.e. perception of one thing changes your perception of another, e.g. having your car valeted and cleaned makes you feel that your car drives better.
This is a key slide from Rory’s talk:
Rory goes on to make the case for considering psychological aspects and solutions in the mix amongst technological and economic solutions. He cites Google as being as much of a psychological success as a technological one.
Rory’s TED Talk is highly recommended viewing.
If you were to look at the World through Rory’s eyes, how would you aim to change perspectives in order to improve the human experience? Within our cities? On our transport? Within our workplaces?
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