Rory Sutherland – Moonshots and Marketing

My guest today is Rory Sutherland. Rory is the Vice Chairman of Ogilvy & Mather Group, which is one of the largest and most renowned advertising agencies in the world. He’s also the author of one of my favorite recent books called Alchemy: The surprising power of ideas that don’t make sense. In this conversation, we explore many of his counterintuitive ideas about business. Rory makes you think as much as anyone, so I hope you enjoy this conversation.   This episode of Invest Like The Best is sponsored by Canalyst. Canalyst is the leading destination for public company data and analysis.  If you’re a professional equity investor and haven’t talked to Canalyst recently, you should give them a shout. Learn more and try Canalyst for yourself at canalyst.com/Patrick.     For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag   Show Notes (2:12) – (First question) – Why spreadsheets and logic kill magic (5:42) – What a product/service is vs how it’s delivered and makes people feel (regular moonshot vs psychological moonshot) (13:22) – Psychological anomalies - doing things faster, better, cheaper (Red Bull vs Coke) (19:54) – Swiss army knife that companies should avoid (22:50) – Don’t design for average (24:39) – How do people approach improving their business through marketing (27:30) – Case for direct mail (29:22) – Turning your weaknesses into a strength (34:29) – The seven deadly sins and how useful they are as guideposts (37:38) – Most powerful sin for marketing (39:14) – Reaching intelligent answers from dumb questions (43:25) – Why the opposite of a good idea can sometimes be a good idea (47:30) – Kindest thing anyone has done for him   Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag