Ogilvy Vice Chairman Rory Sutherland reveals the formula for persuasion, why people make decisions and how you can use psychology to your advantage.
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Rory is the world’s leading advertising strategist. He spent almost four decades at Ogilvy studying why people behave the way they do and how to change that behavior.
He explains why contrast drives choices and efficiency often destroys value, and how trust, friction, and design shape real-world behavior.
Available Now: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | X | Transcript
+Rory was previously on the show; check out episode 19.
Tiny Lessons
- Trust is the only shortcut.
- Visible costs often hide invisible benefits.
- Efficiency is the enemy of magic.
- Rules protect the rule-follower.
- Price is a signal.
- Character is a proxy for quality.
- If you survive long enough, you get lucky.
- Most problems are human, not technical.
- Consumption is about identity, not utility.
- Creativity starts where logic stops.
- Innovation is behavior change.
- Context creates value.
- Status games can’t be turned off, only redirected.
- Differentiation is generosity.
- The map rewards the mapmaker.
- Customer contact is an honor, not a cost.
- The best technology rarely wins.
- Overpaying can be rational. You only get some chances once.
- Complaints are R&D, not a cost.
- Weirdness creates monopolies.
Big Lessons
Rationality isn’t enough. To really win, you have to go beyond logic. If you only do what makes sense, you’re competing with everyone else who has the same data. The magic happens when you do the things that look wrong on a spreadsheet.
Efficiency is the enemy of magic. Any idiot can cut visible costs by firing the doorman. But the invisible costs are where the magic happens. When you optimize for efficiency, you often kill the very thing that customers value.
Character is a proxy for quality. When people can’t judge a product’s quality, they judge the seller’s character. If they trust you, they trust what you’re selling. Character is the ultimate warranty.
The map is not the territory. Spreadsheets are the map; customer problems are the territory. If you run your business by the numbers, you are hallucinating. You have to touch the customers to know where you really are.
Complaints are R&D, not a cost. A call from a customer is an honor, not an interruption. The call center isn’t a cost to be minimized; it’s your best source of intelligence. If you automate away the human connection, you remove your ability to learn.
Price is a feature, not just a number. We don’t just pay for utility, we pay for how the transaction makes us feel. A higher price can actually improve the experience by signaling value and generosity. Sometimes the best way to improve a product is to charge more for it.
Weirdness creates monopolies. If you follow the rules, you compete with everyone else. If you do something that seems irrational but works, you stand alone. The best advantage is being the only one crazy enough to do what you do.
We don’t know what we want until we see what we don’t. AI fails when it tries to give us the “perfect” answer immediately. Humans need comparison to understand value. You have to show people the wrong option so they can recognize the right one.
Invention needs more marketing, not less. The best product doesn’t win; the most familiar one does. New ideas trigger our fear of the unknown. If you’re truly innovating, you need to work twice as hard to make people feel safe enough to try it.
Inefficiency is a filter for character. A little friction is good for the soul. How someone handles a slight delay or a mistake tells you everything about how they’ll handle a crisis.
Don’t measure a home run with a stopwatch. Creative work follows a power law: one great idea pays for a thousand failures. If you pay people by the hour or measure them by daily output, you inadvertently incentivize mediocrity.
Fix the feeling, not the tech. The best way to solve a problem is often to change how it feels, not how it works. A wait feels shorter if you’re entertained, even if the time is the same. Psychology is cheaper than engineering.
Consumption is more about identity than utility. We don’t just buy luxury goods to impress others; we buy them to prove things to ourselves. “Because I’m worth it” is the most potent sales pitch in the world.
Trust is an efficiency hack. A high-trust society moves faster and costs less. When you have to lock up the toothpaste, everyone pays a tax in time and frustration. Trust removes friction.
The opposite of a good idea is another good idea. In logic, the opposite of a truth is a lie. In psychology, the opposite of a good strategy might be another winning strategy.
Rules are for people afraid of judgment. We create procedures, so we don’t have to think. But excellence requires subjective judgment. If no one can get in trouble, no one can do anything great.
Your brand is the person standing in front of the customer. You can spend millions on advertising, but your brand is defined by the postman, the doorman, or the call center agent. If the customer likes them, they like the company.
Context creates value. We happily pay more for a beer at a hotel than at a shack because we value “fairness” over utility. Change the setting, and you change what people are willing to pay.
Don’t optimize; just don’t die. Survival is the prerequisite for success. Don’t try to be perfect; try to avoid the mistakes that kill you.
