Rory Sutherland: Why Logic Is Killing Your Business

There are about 200 million people in the world who if Tim Cook stood up and announced that the next iPhone was going to be a turd on a stick, they'd still rush out and queue and buy it. One of

the UK's biggest podcast guests is back on Jimmy's Jobs of the Future. It's

[ __ ] bonkers. You can monetize ADHD.

Rory Sland sourdough. Nobody's got a clue what it means. It just means posh bread. Okay. Organic. Nobody knew what

bread. Okay. Organic. Nobody knew what it meant. It just meant posh food. And

it meant. It just meant posh food. And

this might be his most controversial interview yet. Here's Jimmy Carr's

interview yet. Here's Jimmy Carr's solution to American gun lawyer. That's

what they do, finance people, isn't it?

They don't actually create any value.

They just move money around to make it look more impressive. A comedian called Andrew Schultz. We chat conspiracy

Andrew Schultz. We chat conspiracy theories. The Kennedy assassination was

theories. The Kennedy assassination was that actually in response to Oswald's first shot. What the [ __ ] going on

first shot. What the [ __ ] going on there? Hold on. If I know this and

there? Hold on. If I know this and nobody else does, true life crime, serial killers, this was not a conspiracy but a cover up. His

extraordinary political takes.

I was very unusual opinion on Brexit, which is that I didn't think it was that important. I genuinely still don't. I

important. I genuinely still don't. I

mean, it inconveniences me personally less than road works on the A25. The

rest is politics would be fun because I find both the hosts mildly annoying and I would I would just like to rile them.

Okay. With their overconfident kind of and of course not forgetting how to win in business. Sometimes doing totally

in business. Sometimes doing totally irrational or deviant things may make sense. The only way to actually get

sense. The only way to actually get uphill is to go downhill first. If you

want the worst case of branding ever in world history, you can have an utterly stupid idea in business, which makes no goddamn sense at all. Red Bull. Okay.

You will not forget this episode. It's

my greatest achievement as a parent.

Yeah. They drink beer.

Well, and I've got three daughters, all under five, so start early. There's

alcohol-free Guinness now. Okay. It's

never It's never too early. Okay.

Make sure you subscribe so we can continue to get bigger and bigger guests.

This episode is powered by Octopus Energy. We'll be talking more about it

Energy. We'll be talking more about it later in the show. Now, I'm absolutely sort of team Android and I've got a

Samsung Galaxy uh S24 Ultra. I've got a Android tablet. Um, and the reason is a

Android tablet. Um, and the reason is a bit weird, which is I'm happy to admit that the latest

iPhone might be better slightly.

However, I also know enough about human psychology to know there are about 200 million people in the world who if Tim Cook stood up and announced that the

next iPhone was going to be a turd on a stick, they'd still rush out and queue and buy it. Yeah. And therefore, I trust Android buyers to be actually rational

actors. And therefore, the popularity of

actors. And therefore, the popularity of any Android phone is a reliable signal of its quality because they've bought it despite the fashion.

Yeah.

Whereas in Apple, I would argue that the herd mentality and the complete cultish nature of the thing means I can't quite trust social proof.

That's interesting. What are the counterintuitive examples of social proof? Well, an interesting example

proof? Well, an interesting example would be Nim Talib's suggestion. If you

have to choose between two brain surgeons, and one of them looks like a brain surgeon from Central Casting, you know, Ivy League degrees, you know, gray hair, and the other guy looks a bit like

a butcher with a tie not done up and his top button undone, you pick the latter because the latter one has succeeded despite his appearance, whereas the former may have succeeded because of his appearance.

Yeah.

Okay. And so generally whenever anybody appears on television as a spokesman who looks implausible or unlikely

um the most underrepresented group on TV by the way uh which would be older women who are also the sest part of the population by and large okay so women in

their 40s 50s and 60s are probably the most sensible demographic in the entire population by some measure and yet they're the least likely to appear on television and be asked their opinions.

When those people appear on television, there's a really good reason for them to be there and therefore you should pay double attention.

That's really uh really interesting.

We're here in the uh Oglev offices, the amphitheater bit. What What was the

amphitheater bit. What What was the first thing that you ever did for money?

What was your first job?

Oh, um that's interesting. Well, I did various things like envelope stuffing and paper rounds and things like that.

Uh then as a holiday job for two years while I was a student I um I worked in the Beams Ribena factory in Kulford. Uh

the first year as a kind of um uh dogs's body and the second year as a forklift truck driver which I have to say I enjoyed immensely. If you ever get the

enjoyed immensely. If you ever get the chance to drive a forklift truck uh you should definitely take it on because it's a joy.

And what did that teach you about the world of work etc. Yeah, I mean that's very different to the creative agency we sit out looking out over St. Paul's. Uh

there's a huge component to the world of work which is unexpectedly gratifying which is when you think about it most

academic activity is kind of rivalous an individual.

Yeah. So you might argue the education system does an incredibly bad job of judging people's ability to work cooperatively with other people because it's so interested in sifting and

sorting people individually.

Yeah.

That it's got a bit better. There's

there's more teamwork involved in academia. But one of the things you

academia. But one of the things you realize that actually work is social.

Yeah.

In a way that actually academic work simply isn't. And actually academia is

simply isn't. And actually academia is remarkably non-social. I mean, I've got

remarkably non-social. I mean, I've got a wonderful friend called Paul Dolan who complains that um having come from a kind of working-class east end background, he says that the thing he

really misses when he's in academia is there's a complete absence of banter and badinage.

Um and actually when you get into the world of work and you suddenly realize, hold on, we can actually solve this problem through cooperation.

Yeah.

Uh it's it's a bit of an epiphany. Do

you think academia should have more sort of collaborative things? Because you're

right. I mean, you don't really work very well.

In fairness, my daughter did geography and planning at Newcastle and quite a lot of the work was was team projects where uh they each played to the individual strengths. Um and it so not

individual strengths. Um and it so not everything was judged purely on an individual basis.

Yeah. Um I mean the other problem with academic sorting is that in order to be fair you have to apply the same criteria to everybody which means you effectively

select for the same things every time in every person.

Yeah.

And the same people win every time. And

there's a great book by a guy called Fishkin I think is it Lewis Fishkin who's a UCLA legal professor who argues that the whole point of equality of

opportunity leads to bottlenecks because you need then to determine who deserves the opportunity and in order to do that fairly you have to apply the same

criteria to everybody and only some people are good at that one thing.

Yeah.

And Fishkin argues very convincingly I think that to remove these kind of bottlenecks the book is called bottlenecks.

To remove these bottlenecks what you need to aim for is plurality of opportunity, diversity of opportunity.

So what you need is a society where lots of people have an opportunity to be successful in lots of different ways in lots of different moments in their life.

Yeah.

And what we've created is an opportunity for some very specific people to be disproportionately successful at a at one particular skill at one particular moment of their life.

Yeah. And it's it's not a it's not a great way to create a um actually either a fair or a diverse pluralistic um and economically wealthy society because

you're basically overemphasizing those metrics which you happen to have arbitrarily chosen to be the uh way in which you discriminate between a first class degree and a 22. And how do you

spot talent? What are the sort of

spot talent? What are the sort of markers that you've developed over the years for spotting it? because you go out and about a lot as well.

Um, one thing I' I'd make as an optimistic point, which is there's an awful lot of kind of dissing on Gen Z, but my general impression of the young,

um is that they are overwhelmingly sort of more sophisticated and informed in most respects than my own generation would have been. And it occurs to me, of

have been. And it occurs to me, of course, that one of the things, one of the unsung benefits of the internet is that it's removed or massively reduced

what you might call uh geographic inequality and access to information.

Yeah.

So, I was I was reading someone who went to a university from a deprived background. Okay. Uh I I think it was

background. Okay. Uh I I think it was about 15 20 years ago and they were offered humus and they didn't know what it was. Okay. Totally. By the way, I

it was. Okay. Totally. By the way, I totally sympathize because I know I'm old enough. My aunt very sophisticated

old enough. My aunt very sophisticated architect uh towards the end of life had never eaten a bagel and wasn't entirely familiar with the concept. Um and if you

just grew up in a more provincial millure you were denied access to a whole level of stimulus that was available to people who lived in say London or Manchester.

Yeah. And that

I mean the extent to which digital technology has reduced what you might call regional inequality in terms of opportunity to

access information and stimulus and so forth um is I think one of the big unsung contributions of the last 20 or 30 years. But in picking talent from

30 years. But in picking talent from young people, ultimately we've got to remember that everything you do is a kind of proxy. That actually judging people at their real world performance

at a task is vastly more reliable than using kind of weird proxy measures like degree class. Now obviously there are

degree class. Now obviously there are areas where you know in certain areas of maths or of of finance or insurance someone's mathematical ability is a pretty useful indicator. But to what

extent a good humanities degree is an indicator of your ability to work in advertising is is not entirely clear.

Um I would look for someone who was good at something else.

In other words, they've got a bit of a hinterland.

Yeah.

Someone with a weird curious obsession, whether it's steam traction engines.

David Oglevy described a good copywriter as being characterized by being an extensive browser in all kinds of fields. Yeah. So I'd emphatically look

fields. Yeah. So I'd emphatically look for curiosity. I'd look for someone who

for curiosity. I'd look for someone who had a either a hintterland or what you might call a you know um you know a second or third area of interest.

There's lovely story in advertising of someone who was hired as an art director.

I think this is back in the 70s or early 80s and they were an art director but they turned up for a job interview and they'd already finished the times crossword. Yeah. Now, what that is is

crossword. Yeah. Now, what that is is that I I have to confess that would kind of impress me automatically. An interest

in cryptic crosswords, an interest in true life crime, serial killers, if they're willing to countenance, the fact that Lucy Letby might be innocent, etc. Those kind of things. In other words,

that they deploy their intellect um not purely to the extent that it's immediately and commercially necessary.

Yes, that would be that would be one of the criteria. Apparently, it's become quite

criteria. Apparently, it's become quite a popular question now in America, higher echelon places to ask which conspiracy theories people believe in.

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and we can discuss it. Right, back to Rory.

Apparently, it's become quite a popular question now in America, higher echelon places to ask which conspiracy theories people believe in like or or have the

most question which is what is your what is the belief you hold or at least hold to be possible which would be treated as outrageous or unusual.

Yeah.

So, in other words, um someone who believes every conspiracy theory probably isn't a brilliant employee.

Okay. because you know they they would have a level of paranoia which would make it extremely difficult for you to cooperate with them. But equally, I'm also skeptical about someone who

believes no conspiracy theory at all.

Yeah. Um there's an Australian I don't think he's right, but it always strikes me as interesting that the Kennedy assassination was that actually in response to Oswald's first shot, someone

in one of the following cars picked up a gun and accidentally shot Kennedy in the back of the head. Yeah. And therefore

this was not a conspiracy but a cover up.

Yeah.

Okay. And that strikes me as a very very interesting theory because it always strikes me that conspiracies are much much rarer than coverups.

Yes.

Conspiracies require prior cooperation between a group of people all of whom stay mum both before and after the event.

Yeah.

With in some cases an incentive to actually tell the truth. Okay. A cover

up is a very very plausible theory because everybody has a has an incentive to cover up their own incompetence in an institutional setting particularly.

Yeah, that's true. I mean in politics it's often talked about it's probably [ __ ] up rather than conspiracy but actually cover up is a good third element of it cuz that's cockup plus cover up.

Yeah.

Is is quite a common phenomenon and of course because people are blame averse.

Yeah.

Okay.

um and reputationally, you know, very vulnerable in politics as well in that, you know, one one weird [ __ ] up can actually haunt you for a ridiculous length of time. You might even

reasonably argue that actually politicians who don't [ __ ] up aren't taking enough risks.

Yeah. Yeah. Quite I think that's true.

But I think that's you're probably seeing this with Farage Boris Trump phenomena, right? I mean those guys have

phenomena, right? I mean those guys have made mistakes. Yeah.

mistakes. Yeah.

But there is the feeling that something big might happen. Okay. If you were choosing um someone as a boss and you thought your company was slightly

heading down the tubes, okay, you would probably be more optimistic to hear that Trump had been appointed the new CEO than Camala simply because if you believed that desperate measures

were required, uh it was more likely that he'd do something fundamentally eccentric and left field than the managerialist.

Yeah. managed to

and there's a brilliant, by the way, a podcast uh it's a philosophy podcast fairly recent featuring Paul Bloom, the

professor of psychology at Yale, who gives about five or six actually rational reasons why sometimes doing

totally irrational or deviant things may make sense. and why in some ways we're

make sense. and why in some ways we're evolutionally conditioned occasionally to bet the farm on things, to roll the dice, to do things which are wholly unexpected.

Yeah. One of the reasons being, by the way, simply that if you're in slow decline, it's likely that you may be trapped in what complexity theorists would call a local maximum. And the only way to actually get uphill is to go

downhill first. Yeah.

downhill first. Yeah.

So doing something that's actually, you know, jaguar if you like. Okay. Doing

something which seems incredibly left field if the alternative is being trapped in a declining market, okay, is not an irrational thing to do.

Yeah, it may seem what you might call the rationality it's using isn't deduction or induction. It's more like something like a deductive inference,

which is an imaginative leap. Yeah,

it's an uncertain imaginative leap, but it's actually probably better than doing the rational thing if the rational thing merely traps you into a kind of spiral of slow decline.

Um, what's the worst part of your job?

Oh, the diary management. The whole

because I I've got myself in an annoying situation where I have a busy diary, but I can't cancel anything and I can't be late for something.

Yeah. because my presence is more and more material and that that's that's the bit that gets really tedious to be honest. Um,

honest. Um, and it's odd actually. The job itself is fundamentally enjoyable. It's the

fundamentally enjoyable. It's the logistics around the job that are tiresome.

What was the first I quite enjoyed lockdown?

I'll be honest with you because you got out of bed. Uh, you put a cardigan on over your pajamas and you clicked join meeting. Okay. This morning, our meeting

meeting. Okay. This morning, our meeting required me to get dressed, perform a load of ablutions, travel to a station, buy a rail ticket, buy a parking ticket, catch a train, change trains at London

Bridge. Okay.

Bridge. Okay.

Yeah. The amount of I find I'm I'm basically slightly dyspraxic, I think.

And so I find the actual what's notionally the hard part of the job fundamentally interesting and what you might call the uh the logistical hassle

around that job that's necessary in order to perform it just by appearing in an office somewhere. I find that actually a pain in the ass.

Uh what are the advantages of being slightly dyspraxic though?

There's probably some sort of compensatory mechanism. I joke

compensatory mechanism. I joke occasionally that the great thing about advertising is it's one of the very few ways where you can monetize ADHD.

Um and so having a little bit of that um uh a little you know I do worry about the medicalization of ADHD because at some level uh are you not treating creativity as if it's a disorder?

Yeah.

Yeah. Now you know it depends what you're required to do. you know, someone with a D AHD who's required to work in air traffic control. I'd rather them faintly medicated. But it but there's a

faintly medicated. But it but there's a wonderful woman whose name I briefly gotten who's a professor at I think King's College London who makes the argument that a lot of these

neurotypical qualities are in evolutionary terms necessary. that a

group that contains people who are non-neurotypical has significant advantages in things like collective decision-making and action that an entirely homogeneous neurotypical group wouldn't have.

Yeah.

And I think that's an entirely plausible theory actually. It it's why I also

theory actually. It it's why I also think that comedy is valuable that how that comedy is another way of looking at things and it's complementaryary to what you might call

the mainstream serious way of looking at things and that very change in context the very change in outlook um has a value in and of itself you think comedians make could I

I think okay here's Jimmy Carr's solution to American gun for the general solution is you ban

guns or you don't ban guns. Jimmy Car's

solution which is very interesting because I think it's informed by evolutionary psychology is uh in order to own a gun uh you've got to be a member of a gun club and the members of

any gun club of 100 people or so are held collectively responsible for the behavior of their membership. M

now if you think about that that's really rather clever okay because everybody it's it's very much an insight actually taken from micro lending you know the whole business of um

uh he's not actually the prime minister of Bangladesh yeah okay isn't it which is that if you lend a group of people money and they're jointly and severally liable for

repaying the loan the reliability of the repayment is very very high because the group is its own internal police force.

Yeah. Completely.

And so that business of devolving responsibility along with the devolution of power at a scale appropriate to the maintenance of safety is a really important insight which government could

probably replicate in lots of different ways. What if you made property

ways. What if you made property development work that way? You said,

"Okay, here are the hundred households that are going to be affected if we give planning permission uh okay to build on this field.

Let's see what happens if we devolve power to the same people who are effectively responsible. what what would

effectively responsible. what what would be a likely kind of uh acceptable compromise which is usually we get a waitro okay right okay but okay

but nonetheless okay that's an interesting finding in other I'm a big fan of these citizens assemblies not I'm not sure they should actually enact things but as a vastly

better form of market research one of the problems with politics and it's worth noting that politics nicked this from the ad industry to an extent is the focus group is not a very

good way of determining what people can be persuaded to do, believe, think.

Yeah.

Okay. It's a very good way of getting a knee-jerk response to a sound bite.

And consequently, politics that's optimized around the focus group is not going to be optimized around what you might call deep problem solving and new forms of consensus. it's going to be

optimized for um snappy little phrases which have a disproportionate effect.

Now, that was probably perfectly appropriate if you're researching an ad in the soap powder category. Okay,

that's relevant information. How does

someone making a very snap decision respond to a very small amount of information and how does the way you couch that information affect their response? It's still worth doing in

response? It's still worth doing in politics, okay? Because we've all seen

politics, okay? Because we've all seen things in politics where bad branding has killed a good idea. The dementia

tax, which was obviously that was a journalist who called it the dementia tax for quite peculiar and specific reasons.

Okay. But

the dementia tax was actually an attempt to solve the social care problem which was not altogether unintelligent. If you

want the worst case of branding ever in world history, which has had delletterious consequences, nuclear power, this probably using the word nuclear uh to describe nuclear power

generation uh probably was one of the most catastrophic unintentional cases of bad branding you could possibly imagine.

Yeah. No, I agree with it. That's a

really good point. Um what was the first pitch you worked on here at Oglev?

The very first one was I think a pitch for British Airways for their loyalty program in about 19 89. I was the account person then as a

89. I was the account person then as a creative person. I think it was a pitch

creative person. I think it was a pitch for sainsburries for a loyalty program.

No holiday. I must have done been involved in some before that. Um but I started in direct marketing which is a fantastic place to start because you actually get quantifiable results in

response to your messaging. Yeah.

And as a consequence, you learn much more rapidly than uh other people learn that what seems to be ostensibly

persuasive in terms of argumentation may not change behavior very much.

Whereas what seems surprisingly oblique can have an enormous emotional effect which then changes behavior a great deal. So again, it teaches you that

deal. So again, it teaches you that difference between winning an argument and solving a problem. Um, what was one of the most underrated marketing campaigns of all time?

Uh, the one I always choose is the London Overground. I don't know why they've divided into seven lines and given them weird names because that strikes me as just I'm not I'm not objecting to the politics behind it.

Yeah.

Although notice they're all positive images of women. I think you should have a bit of diversity and have like the Rose West line or the Eileen Wos line to prove that women aren't actually flawless. Okay? You know, I think we

flawless. Okay? You know, I think we should, you know, we we should be conscious of this. But no, I'll park back. Okay. But what was genius about

back. Okay. But what was genius about the overground is it already existed.

More people use the overground in a day than use the Elizabeth line. And yet the Elizabeth line cost 20 billion. And uh

the overground cost 200 million, which means it's 1% of the cost. The reason is all the infrastructure existed. No one

was using it. And the reason they didn't use it is that Londoners use the tube map as their kind of proxy map of London. And no Londoner except for South

London. And no Londoner except for South Londoners considers above ground surface rail to be a solution to any London travel problem. They basically think of

travel problem. They basically think of railways as places you get to Manchester on. Okay. Therefore, all they did with

on. Okay. Therefore, all they did with the overground, they spent 200 million improving the lighting, the rolling stock, increasing the frequency, increasing disabled access, extending a few platforms, and building about 5

miles of additional track.

The marketing genius was they pretended it was a tube line. Yeah.

They called it the overground. They made

it orange and they added it to the tube map. Okay.

map. Okay.

And the point I'm making there is that um uh what was genius about that is on the first day it appeared on the tube map usage went up like 400%. For the first

time ever, it wasn't that that the infrastructure had changed. It was our ability cognitively to understand the role that infrastructure might play in our lives. Yeah. Which was transformed

our lives. Yeah. Which was transformed basically using ink and pixels far more than it used engineering. Now when you go to transport for London and you have

a problem their re their reaction their knee-jerk reaction will be we need to change the infrastructure and my view is no no you may just need to change theformational presentation if

too many people are using the central line and not enough people are using the circle line in the summer. Okay very

simple you just put circle line brackets airond conditioned wherever the circle line intertwines with the central line.

Okay. And you'll get 10% of people to change their journey.

Yeah.

Okay.

And it's you should always The thing that annoys me with politics is it starts with law, which is compulsion.

Then if the lawyers fail, it moves to economics, which is bribery, and then only if those two fail does it consider persuasion.

Yeah.

Now, obviously, all three things have a part to play in changing behavior and improving society. But shouldn't you

improving society. But shouldn't you approach things the opposite way round?

Let's see what we can persuade people to do, then if the persuasion fails, we'll try incentives. And if the incentives

try incentives. And if the incentives fail, then only then should we resort to compulsion. But because government's

compulsion. But because government's dominated by the legal mindset, you need more Steve Norris and you need more Grant Shaps. Yeah.

Grant Shaps. Yeah.

You know, you need a few people who've been photocopier salesman for 15 years.

That's who you need in politics. I think

and because it's dominated by the legalistic um mindset, it automatically accords greater status to legal solutions than solutions. Now I

was at the Adam Smith Institute last night giving a lecture at the Adam Smith Institute pretty hardcore you know libertarian free market guys although with a healthily

strong Austrian and Georgia bent I might add. Okay. But one of the things they

add. Okay. But one of the things they said is even at their most libertarian the the Adam Smith society never opposed labeling. They didn't oppose calorific

labeling. They didn't oppose calorific labeling. They didn't oppose labeling of

labeling. They didn't oppose labeling of energy efficiency on domestic appliances because they go you're free to ignore that information if you want to.

Yeah. Um but on the other hand um uh it makes salient at the point of purchase something the consumer may not find easy to compare

and therefore leads to better informed consumption which in the viewpoint of the great Adam Smith would therefore improve overall human flourishment.

Yeah.

Okay. So they're not opposed to lab. Now

interestingly the labeling actually worked in two ways by the way. So when

you had tumble dryers you know A B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B plus whatever it might be. Consumers then

suddenly factored in energy efficiency at the point of purchase which was previously something that got dwarfed by how attractive the interface was or whether it matched the color color of the kitchen. But the secondary effect

the kitchen. But the secondary effect was that big retailers like John Lewis and Curries said to the manufacturers, okay, in 12 months time everything you send us had better be a B or above

because we're not going to sell anything below a B because it makes us look crap.

Yeah. So, it actually worked at two levels. You know, you might say if

levels. You know, you might say if you're a McDonald's, the way calorific labeling works is, do you know what the most calorific thing at McDonald's is, by the way? It's

not a burger.

That's probably what it sounds.

Double double chocolate muffin.

Okay. Now, if you're a McDonald's, you may say, "Actually, the way this works isn't the consumer not choosing a double chocolate muffin because they've been to McDonald's. They're probably in the mind

McDonald's. They're probably in the mind for a bit of a treat, but it might well be McDonald's going, "Okay, on the calorie board, that muffin looks ridiculous. We need to reformulate."

ridiculous. We need to reformulate."

You've managed to get your daughters to drink pints rather than wine.

I'm happy for them to drink half pints if they wish.

Half pints, but one of them is actually both of them drink Guinness. One of them is a very

drink Guinness. One of them is a very loyal Guinness drinker, and it's my greatest achievement as a parent whether they drink beer.

Well, and I've got three daughters, all under five, so I'm just start early.

There's alcohol-f free Guinness now.

Okay. It's never It's never too early.

Okay. Right.

But I just Yeah, I I I think I'm going to have so many big barbells.

But no, I just didn't want to be buying There's certain drinks that I just find irritating. Rosé and Procco. I just

irritating. Rosé and Procco. I just

Every time you you're asked for one, there's a little bit of your brain which goes, "Oh, for [ __ ] sake." you know, and so the fact that both both my daughters are beer drinkers and and especially Guinness drinkers is a point

of pride for me as a father because I don't have to do that kind of I mean they will drink rosé annoyingly. Um but

nonetheless the fact that they're you know they're quite large by the way uh you know a small discursion on the sudden surge which I think is an

interesting match of marketing and technology the sudden explosion in alcohol-f free beers is fascinating. I was on a podcast

is fascinating. I was on a podcast called Cleaning Up with Mike Libre a few weeks ago and he made the brilliant point which is that the profusion of acceptable non-alcoholic drinks in pubs

is the kind of thing which government would have fantasized about from a public health perspective and and a motoring safety perspective. Okay.

And yet it seems to have happened entirely spontaneously without any government encouragement or intervention unless you maybe include the tax system which makes them very lucrative. Yeah.

Okay. But what was interesting talking to the people at Lucky Saint, they think that a large part of the reason for the success was that

everybody before Lucky Saint had sold alcohol-free beer as well, it's alcohol-f free and it's beer. And they

said, "This is a great beer." And by the way, it's got no alcohol.

And that they thought that actually the relative framing of how they framed the alcohol-free that beer was decisive in their success. and ask

their success. and ask quite often you have um undoubtedly the alcohol-f free beer is better. I mean

Guinness Zero is indistinguishable I would argue from from mainstream Guinness and I would argue psychologically delivers some of the conviviality of beer drinking simply because there's there's a weird

phenomenon among alcoholics which is called dry drunk isn't it?

Yeah. that effectively if you give alcoholics um a drink they think is alcoholic um uh which isn't they will basically still act drunk and I think

drinking alcohol-f free is I'm getting by a by mental association by my brain's predictive mechanism I'm getting some of the conviviality without the incapacity

yeah which I think is actually a psychological mind trick which is really interesting when did you first become really interested in behavioral science like when was that because it it is an industry that's become much bigger in

the 21st century than before.

The epiphany was working in direct marketing. Actually, it was probably

marketing. Actually, it was probably before that. My father ran a small

before that. My father ran a small business.

The great thing about working growing up in a small business, whether it's a shop or a cafe or a restaurant, if you've got a family business, it's like a free MBA.

Yeah.

Okay.

And so you automatically start to notice. And the entrepreneurial mindset

notice. And the entrepreneurial mindset is the the bureaucratic mindset hates outliers and surprising information because it messes with their mental

model. And they react to counter um what

model. And they react to counter um what you might call counterintuitive information with hostility. Just as the original behavioral econ economists were shunned by the mainstream economists

because it was viewed to be messing with the neatness of their own artificial model.

The entrepreneurial mindset is absolutely opposite. If it notices

absolutely opposite. If it notices anything weird, it looks for an arbitrage opportunity.

Yeah. Okay. And the governmental bureaucratic mindset is I must maintain consistency so that I can avoid blame for my decisions by preserving fidelity

to the model which I use to justify my own activities to create a spirious veneer of rationality around everything I do with the ultimate aim of avoiding blame and responsibility.

Yeah. The entrepreneurial mindset is what the [ __ ] going on there? Hold on.

If I know this and nobody else does, there's a there's a market opportunity here.

Okay. Fundamentally, there are two absolutely opposing mindsets in the way.

The detective mindset is, well, that was weird. Someone drove a van through, you

weird. Someone drove a van through, you know, past the house three times in the same evening. Okay, there might be an

same evening. Okay, there might be an innocent explanation, but let's have a little bit of a look. Okay, the

legalistic mindset is that is irrelevant information because it has no evidential value. Okay. Right. And so this is where

value. Okay. Right. And so this is where I go cops are cle cops in many ways are much cleverer than lawyers in their approach to information.

Yes. And so but by the way I mean scientists if you think about it nearly all significant scientific breakthroughs don't start with a proof they start with an observation. You know Darwin with

an observation. You know Darwin with Finch's beak Newton with an apple.

Fleming with um Penicellian and the funny little thing. Viagra with the strange behavior of um uh the people on the trial. Yeah.

the trial. Yeah.

Okay. All of those things started with a freak um in many ways to the bureaucratic mind annoying um uh piece of discrepancy.

And the creative act was not a spontaneous creative act. It was having the insight to see the possible implications and possible explanation

for this unusual finding.

Are there any podcasts that you have not appeared on that you would like to?

You've done so many.

Yeah, I mean a lot of that was during lockdown where my argument was, well, there's nothing else to do. And also, if you can talk to even an audience of a hundred okay

it's still a big network effect. And if

you have an audience of um we don't think like this, but a podcast audience of 50,000, that's a godamn stadium.

Yeah.

Okay. you know, 80,000. That's the

Melbourne cricketing ground. That's

Taylor Swift numbers. Okay.

Now, I don't have the album sales or indeed the ticket prices or the or the or the price elasticity.

But nonetheless, I think we tend to we got so obsessed with broadcast TV that we tended to actually think, oh, it's only 20,000.

You that's an enormous multiplier. I

mean, the largest physical event I've probably spoken to is 2,000 people.

Yeah. So, an online audience of 20,000 is immense. And my weird street fame

is immense. And my weird street fame where people come up to me and demand selfies all the time um actually is kind of proof that 100,000 people is a lot of people.

Oh yeah, I suppose.

Um the rest is politics would be fun because I find both the hosts mildly annoying and I would I would like to rile them. Okay. over their, you know,

rile them. Okay. over their, you know, their overconfident kind of remainery Harris supporting kind of um default mode. Um and I, you know, I I I do find

mode. Um and I, you know, I I I do find both of them actually slightly irritating in that it is that business of, you know, making confident pronouncements. Yeah.

pronouncements. Yeah.

Without actually considering considering the opposite.

Well, I would love to hear you on that.

Okay. I mean by the way I would very unusual opinion on Brexit which is that I voted remain of content remain. I

don't think it was that important. I

genuinely still don't. I mean it inconveniences me personally less than road works on the A25. Yeah. Okay. Now

there I know this is genuinely true.

Okay. Now my only point is if it really was that dire first of all why weren't the people protesting business people?

Yeah. But they were teachers. Okay. It

was an identity problem. No one the economic problem was a total post that in other words the whole economic question was called into service okay by people who weren't happy to make the

emotional case of loss of identity. But

why have these cultural issues and identity issues become so much more prevalent in our politics?

Um 10 years ago they weren't really they're well 15 years ago. You have you have if you think about it a kind of middle class which doesn't really come much into contact with people who don't think like that.

Yeah.

And of course you could argue that social media merely exacerbates uh the bubbles that already existed in the physical world.

Um, you could I mean we are essentially tri my argument is there's a kind of very weird

attempt to kind of eradicate tribalism in one form unless it fits a definition that suits some sort of Marxist academic

theory about class, gender, race or sexuality. Okay. And um we are just

sexuality. Okay. And um we are just um a bit tribal. Yeah.

Uh, it's inevitable. I'll tell you an extraordinary story. So, my daughter

extraordinary story. So, my daughter does a DNA test and um it turns out that she's got something like 2 to 3% of West African DNA, which almost certainly

comes from me. Okay? And the reason is not because there were a lot of Garnans in the north of Scotland, hence the name of Southerntherland. It was because

of Southerntherland. It was because there were quite a lot of Southerntherlands in Ghana. And it's a reverse correlation. In fact, the

reverse correlation. In fact, the country in the world after Scotland, maybe Canada, where Southerntherland is the most common name is actually gone, right?

Where I'm sure the Southernland family were performing missionary work and other let's not ask. Okay, okay, let's let's just not go there. But what was quite funny is that after discovering, you

know, that my DNA is partly West African, my daughter was on the phone to one of her breasts. Okay, I'd only discovered this hour before.

and she said to her friend and uh according to my DNA survey which show we were related to a lot of people in inveness and Wales and etc which all made sense but apart from this West African component which I think is

reverse correlation my daughter's on the phone to a friend she goes and according to my DNA report I'm 3% North African and I shouted we're not [ __ ] North

African we're west African okay now this was this was an identity I'd only been made dimly aware of two hours before but the idea that my affinity with the

Ashanti or of Ghana or the Hebrew was now being confused with you know Algerians and Moroccans suddenly it was an instinctive reaction that I was

misrepresented it was I admit the most absurd reaction I looked at myself going why in the hell did you react like that now the point

about tribalism is not that your or even nationalism is not that you deny it away okay you find manageable, amusing and beneficial outlets for it.

Yeah.

And you harness it. One of the most important components to managing human difference is almost certainly comedy and humor. There's a fascinating

and humor. There's a fascinating phenomenon which is a comedian called Andrew Schultz.

Yeah.

Who if you presented his textual um content to an audience of American academics, they'd demand that he was cancelled and prevented. how his

audiences are entirely multithnic and entirely participate in the abuse. Okay,

which is equal opportunities abuse.

Okay, in other words, everybody gets it.

Okay, now what fascinated me about that is it's it's exactly the answer which is that I always make about psychology which is in psychology unlike physics

the opposite of a good idea can be another good idea.

Yeah. And the opposite of hiding something is to make fun of it, to make light of it.

And you know, you might argue that anybody who has is English but has a French friend. Yeah. Okay. Um,

French friend. Yeah. Okay. Um,

controversial I know. Okay. But no, but they've reached this accommodation already. They both take the piss out of

already. They both take the piss out of each other slightly, but actually that contributes to rather than diminishes the affection you feel for each other.

Okay. And the idea that you pretend it away is actually not really psychologically feasible.

Yeah.

And you know, the solution to a lot of these things is to have people aware of things but not give a [ __ ] about them.

Yeah. Okay. you know, um, and you know, I don't think there's going to be a day where, you know, if you're Welsh, there there is there aren't going to be the odd sheep comments, but what the what the Welsh have done there, if you look

at a Rugby International, is they only insult and take inflatable sheep and wave them around in the crowd. Okay, in

Wisconsin, people wear enormous wedges of cheese on their heads because they're stereotyped as cheese heads so that fans of the Milwaukee Brewers or whatever it is or uh, you know, own the insult.

Yeah, there are lots and lots of evolved psychological hacks which exist in the human mind to actually solve these problems or at

least to massively mitigate.

Okay. And what you might call the direct legalistic logical approach which we've often seen recently um is perfectly well-intentioned. In a

logical world, it should actually work quite well. But empirically we have to

quite well. But empirically we have to acknowledge that it might actually be counterproductive.

Um as a final so if you're an empiricist the your quality of reasoning is subordinate to your quality of outcome.

Yeah.

Okay. What we've created is a world where the outcome you're not so much judged on the quality of your outcome on the consequences but on the on the rigor of the reasoning which led you to that

action.

Yeah. But and that's what happens in a risk averse or bureaucratic institution.

It doesn't really matter what happens so long as my um my my uh sequential logical flow that justifies my actions uh can can is easily defensible.

Yeah.

And whether it doesn't work or not is really your concern. Now the great thing about business is you've got a feedback mechanism which is the profit. Yeah.

Okay. You can have the best idea in the world in business but if you don't sell it you're out of the gene pool. Okay. You

can have an utterly stupid idea in business which makes no goddamn sense at all. Red Bull. Okay. Okay. Right. Okay.

all. Red Bull. Okay. Okay. Right. Okay.

You can have an absolutely dumb idea in business, but if somehow the public picks up on it, okay, the quality of your reasoning is irrelevant to your ultimate success. Yeah. So, free market

ultimate success. Yeah. So, free market things are market tested by the end user who is an accurate evaluator of value.

The bureaucratic system delivers services according to their own measure of value, which is not generally what the consumer values. It's simply

something that's easy to measure or defend. The way that this podcast

defend. The way that this podcast actually makes money is that we make um podcasts for businesses and we are trying to sort of this part we're encouraging businesses to be more

adventurous with it etc. We have built the problem you have is businesses now have a very risk averse person called the press officer.

Yes. who is entirely uh focused on uh downside risk minimization.

Yeah.

And you reach the supreme achievement as a press officer if you keep everybody out of the press altogether with the consequence that if you think about it if news night has a question Yeah.

uh about or wish or the today program needs to interview someone about business. they generally can't get hold

business. they generally can't get hold of a business person because the press office is having connections and it takes three days to get approval and legal uh thing as a consequence of which

the whole world of business which is you know the the greater part of the British economy is massively under represented in news media whereas academics who are free to pitch up anytime they like and

probably aren't that busy to begin with okay they dominate the conversation because they can you know some bloody economist or academic can pitch up and sound off entire entirely freely.

Whereas the corporate reputational paranoia has caused the business interest to be fundamentally underrepresented.

But this is why I think them creating their own channels will give them the security of it. And I think that's why it's going to be a big thing.

There are 20,000 people who could have done what I did. The truth of the matter is they probably weren't allowed to.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

If I'm being honest about it, which is let, you know, let's just, you know, business is a highly creative act. Okay.

Um, contrary to what everybody likes to think, most of the effort in business is pretending it's deterministic and boring when the reality is that it's probabilistic and exciting and I know

but that's yeah I mean that's what I want to do with the podcast is sort of shine light on all these different business stories and the start an economist when I say that the great thing about capitalism is it produces

white wall tires, fins on cars, um, uh, frozen parathas by the way which I'm going to plug.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. one of the greatest products of the last 10 years. Go to the freezer aisle, folks, and I'll find the brand. I

think it's called something like Shawa.

Is it?

You would you were showing me?

I'm showing I will find it on my Android phone. I will go and find this. And uh

phone. I will go and find this. And uh

you just Okay. You can keep it in the freezer. Don't let it defrost. It's

freezer. Don't let it defrost. It's

called Sha is the brand. It's one of the most miraculous food products you'll ever have because within 3 minutes frying in a pan from frozen and don't let it defrost. It's better if you put it straight from the freezer into the

pan. you'll have something which is as

pan. you'll have something which is as good a paratha as you've got in a michelan style Indian restaurant. Now

you know that that sales are going to the frozen paratha and the white wall tires and red bull that it can produce things that if you think about it the

Soviet Union was completely wrongfooted by the popularity of denim. Okay. Okay.

Yeah. That that's what's magnificent about it. the fact that it's [ __ ]

about it. the fact that it's [ __ ] bonkers and yet it's been hijacked by all these accountants and finance people who are desperately pretending that it conforms to narrow neoliberal economic

theories. Okay. And everything makes

theories. Okay. And everything makes perfect sense.

I wouldn't want to work in business if it were like that.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Why would you want to do that? Well, so we've we've built Oh,

do that? Well, so we've we've built Oh, I want to get some live marketing advice because as all companies, we could do more sales, etc. So we have built a

podcast calculator on this which as a podcast champion you might be interested in. So basically you put in there all

in. So basically you put in there all these different parameters with podcasts like how many episodes do you want it filmed. I mean all podcasts are filmed

filmed. I mean all podcasts are filmed now but all these different things.

Premium definitely.

Yeah. Like trailer intros.

You notice I pressed premium without even knowing what it meant.

You see that I just chose the premium intro. Uh, it's exactly like, you know,

intro. Uh, it's exactly like, you know, there are loads of things, by the way, which nobody knows what they mean. Okay.

Sourdough, nobody's got a clue what it means. It just means posh bread. Okay.

means. It just means posh bread. Okay.

Organic. Nobody knew what it meant. It

just meant posh food. Okay. Anyway,

sorry. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, you you are you are going to have a premium intro.

How many social video clips per episode?

10.

[ __ ] that.

Do you need a host for the show? Yeah.

Um, no. I'll be my own host, so outsourcing.

Do I need help with publishing? Oh,

yeah. Always. Do you need artwork?

Ah, we can probably provide our own. We

should be able to do a bloody ad agency.

My podcast series would cost £64,000 plus VAT. So, that's the amount of

plus VAT. So, that's the amount of sponsorship I need in order for it to be economically viable.

That is the first way of looking at it.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay.

That's actually a really helpful app.

What's the app called? So, I can plug it.

Well, it's box light on our It's our company that we got it make B2B things. Fantastic. By the way, total total um kudos for being a B2B entity.

The thing you got to realize, okay, and what we've got to get business to realize is that big ideas require big behavioral change. Behavioral change is

behavioral change. Behavioral change is difficult. Therefore, just a small

difficult. Therefore, just a small behaviors respond to advertising.

Yeah, big behaviors require it. And my joke I always make to Greg Jackson of Octopus, who I absolutely venerate. Okay. I think

absolutely extraordinary man. And if if this were America, people businesses like Aicardo, businesses like Octopus Energy, okay, uh really innovative

companies like that would be absolutely idolized. Yeah. Okay.

idolized. Yeah. Okay.

Wise, for example, transfer wise. Okay.

Stling. Okay. You know, those people would be rock stars with their own trailer and entourage. But in Britain, we don't we we we're almost, you know, too egalitarian in terms of our

willingness to uh get excited about homegrown uh brilliant ideas. But I'd

still say to Greg, if you'd called Octopus greenotech.com and you hadn't had a big pink octopus as a logo, you'd still have 20,000 customers.

Yeah.

Okay. So, let's not forget that this door requires two keys to unlock. It's a

bit like those nuclear missiles where you need two separate people to turn a key at the same time in the bunker.

Okay, you need to unlock the technological door. In other words, the

technological door. In other words, the technology has to deliver and be meaningful and offer significant benefits. But if you don't unlock the

benefits. But if you don't unlock the marketing door, which is people can appreciate those benefits and feel comfortable about paying for them and changing their behavior in consequence, then you still haven't got a great great

idea. You've got an invention, but you

idea. You've got an invention, but you haven't got an innovation. What do you think it is about the octopus brand that is so strong?

The octopus.

Yeah. Um, it's pink.

Why Why does it work?

Okay. This is driving a bunch of bloody energy scientists completely batshit crazy, isn't it? Well, I say no. Yeah, I

I know you're doing some really clever stuff with the Kraken software and the whole idea of distributed pricing is great, but actually the fun nature of the thing means that the gamification of energy when octopus comes out with

something really interesting. Okay, our

attitude is oh that's cute rather than what the hell are they doing now? It

fundamentally changes the the pink.

My kids love it though. They play with it.

Have you bought the plushy?

Yeah.

Yeah, I bought the plushy as well. I've

got actually a big pink f, you know, furry octopus that sits. My wife's not totally keen. She's a bit pharaoh and

totally keen. She's a bit pharaoh and bull. She's English. Um but um but

bull. She's English. Um but um but they've got a big pink octopus in the middle of the table. And um

uh but um it's an ex you can get a dog toy as well. You know that. And then on their shop, the octo shop, there's also a really hot chili sauce. What's it

doing there?

No, no logic at all. But that fact that actually we are approaching a category which was tedious. Okay. And we're

innovating in the spirit of optimism and fun.

Yeah.

And by the way, we also ought to uh give a big shout out to their approach to customer service. Yes. Which is entirely

customer service. Yes. Which is entirely different to the customer service approach because by the way, you know, I come from advertising, but I would happily say to twothirds of our clients, can you actually cancel a few of those ads and invest for more people in your

call center, please? Yeah. Yeah.

Because it's very difficult. All

businesses are overinvested in acquisition and underinvested in customer retention because the former is easier to quantify than the latter. It's

very hard to prove what difference a really good call center person makes. My

contention is there are organizations where my propensity to repurchase goes up by a factor of four because of a single really good call center experience. Yeah.

experience. Yeah.

And nearly all businesses are underinvested in this. And then you see the Financial Times writing an article which says, "How did customer service get so bad?" Well, I might say to the Financial Times, if you actually

acknowledge the importance of marketing occasionally, which you don't, and actually admitted that there might be something important about a business other than its quarterly financial results, then maybe business wouldn't be

in this [ __ ] place to begin with. So,

physician heal thyself, if I may say so.

But, but Octopus Energy, that's horrific in the UK. Okay. The

Financial Times pays no attention to marketing. The Economist had a marketing

marketing. The Economist had a marketing um uh correspondent who hated marketing because all economists hate marketing because all their economic models assume perfect information. Yeah. And therefore

perfect information. Yeah. And therefore

they operate in a world in which marketing wouldn't be necessary. So they

see it as a poisonous distortion of consumer preference. You see,

consumer preference. You see, whereas of course um you can't change behavior without it.

Yeah. Yeah.

Um I I al but I think part of it with Octopus Energy and the Octopus brand more broadly is is they do have personality and they do try and do things differently whereas you know a lot of the other energy companies like

you there is no differentiation between them differentiation. No, no, and

them differentiation. No, no, and actually Oo we ought to credit. I mean

OO is similarly seems to be innovative.

Um uh Octopus is an extraordinary potential um export story because of course it's a software company.

Now a little like a cardo actually. Part of

the reason they run the shop is so that the actual what they learn by doing the thing for real then becomes effectively applicable in other markets and with with other retailers. So it's just, you

know, it's part software play, part retailer. Who, if people want to go and

retailer. Who, if people want to go and listen to more Rory Southerntherland content at the end of this. Who

whose podcast did you enjoy appearing on the most? Which sticks in the mind?

the most? Which sticks in the mind?

Um, because you do do a lot. I actually

enjoy all Chris Williamson. I'm always

very happy with very very happy to do yours by the way because the whole B2B arena okay B2B marketing can be just as creative as consumer

marketing it receives less attention not because it's less effective but perhaps because historically ad agencies judge the importance of a client by the size of its media spend.

I I work at Oglev Consulting precisely because I don't care what the media spend is. I simply care about the size

spend is. I simply care about the size of the opportunity and that you have some money to spend. But I I'm not doing this entirely philanthropically, I might

add. Um but um uh but nonetheless um um

add. Um but um uh but nonetheless um um one of the areas which strikes me as enormously important because B2B is 50% of the British economy.

Yeah.

And yet it's talked about inordinately less.

What's a good example of a B2B business marketing campaign you've seen? There's

a company called Back House Jones which ensures uh effectively vehicle operators. So it might be bus companies,

operators. So it might be bus companies, hage companies etc. And the insurance they provide is they provide all your legal affairs and I think increasingly

your HR function okay as a as a back office.

And rather than pricing the way most lawyers do, which is where free until you're in the [ __ ] at which point we charge you a bloody fortune, they have a very simple pricing model, which is to

cover all your ins all your legal needs, you pay, I think it's 20p, it might have gone up now, 25p per vehicle per day.

Yeah.

Notice they don't express that annually.

They express it in an amount that sounds like a rounding error to anybody who's just bought some massive Fodden vehicle for 250 grand. Okay. and to to deal with all the possible legal ramifications of

the ownership of that vehicle, 20p per vehicle per day. And the guy Mr. Jones, fellow Welsh, I imagine, um although he's actually Manunian, uh but you know,

never goes away. Uh he um uh when he markets, when he speaks at transport conferences, he goes and puts sort of 25p underneath everybody's chair and he presents their proposition and he says,

"And if you look under your chair, you'll see I've paid for the first day for you.

So it's a brilliant example. Now price

framing. Okay. What a lot of these psychological things which we've kind of discovered through working in consumer marketing can be not transplanted but translated into B2B.

Yeah.

So let me give you an example. I'm

always horrified when I see a B2B company offer a price reduction. Okay.

And my argument is don't reduce the price, offer a rebate. Now that would be true if you're ASOS, right? If you give people £5 back when they buy something, they're going to buy something else.

Yeah. Right. And I always say, don't reduce your price. Give the finance director an annual rebate conditional on something or other to make it feel of high perceived value.

A finance director would much prefer a rebate to a cost reduction. Why? Because

it's money which he can put wherever he likes, right? He can go, "Oh dear, we're

likes, right? He can go, "Oh dear, we're a bit behind on this little pot. Let's

just take this rebate and move it."

Because that's what they do, finance people, isn't it? They basically just move. They don't actually create any

move. They don't actually create any value. They just move money around to

value. They just move money around to make it look more impressive. Now, just

I'm not going to get my expenses signed off for the next 5 years. Now, okay, I'm teasing, guys. Okay. No, no, but what

teasing, guys. Okay. No, no, but what I'm saying is that a rebate will be much more attractive to a financial person.

Yeah.

An annual rebate will be much more attractive. So, the same money has a

attractive. So, the same money has a different value depending on how you pay it.

Yeah.

Okay. That would just be one example.

Um, what is how do you describe your actual job here at Oglev to a sort of 15y old? What I try and do

here now is maintain particularly as we're paid by the hour in advertising um uh we have become a little bit over procurified

in that the problem of payment by the hour coupled with a client procurement department is that the most valuable things you can do for clients as an advertising agency for the most part are probably things they didn't ask you to do.

Yeah.

Okay. And that would also be true I think of legal firms and everybody else.

This business of payment by the hour is based on the presumption that abinio the procuring company knows exactly what they want.

Okay. Very similar to the assumption in economics by the way. Okay. And it is simply the job for you to satisfy their initial specification. Nearly all

initial specification. Nearly all processes are iterative. Okay. And you

decide what you want as a byproduct of actually doing it. Okay. It's like going shopping, right? You go to TK Maxx. You

shopping, right? You go to TK Maxx. You

don't go with a shopping list. You you

uh effectively uh your preference function is amended by the knowledge of what's available. Okay.

what's available. Okay.

And your your utility function is continually updated according to your uh exploration of the market. And

consequently, I think a lot of professional services firms, including management consultancies at agencies, buy this dumb payment by the hour thing, which is an appalling, stupid way to

actually charge for what we do. Uh,

we've become uh too linear. And my job, I think, is to basically continually provide the hint to that. And actually,

it means being a bit of a pain in the ass because part of that job to the unbelievably to a linear mindset, that means you're derailing things. you're

throwing a spanner in the works. But

actually, um, as long as I can be I can judge my moment. And by the way, derailing something at the beginning is much less annoying than derailing something at the end. Okay? You know,

one of the worst things you can do on any creative project is start work straight away.

Okay? There's a kind of messy preliminary phase where it is absolutely correct to dick around with the brief not least to ask the question whether

the objective of the brief is the right one even to begin with. Yeah.

So you know my example that you know if you given the brief for highspeed 2 to Disney rather than to engineering firms they would have said I don't we're not interested in all these questions about time speed duration and capacity. The

question we want to ask is how do you make a train journey so bloody enjoyable that nobody wants to go by car? Right.

Yeah.

Now I don't know how disnified the solution would be, but that's a much much more interesting question because psychology allows you far more potential for breakthrough moments than engineering

does. Yeah. You ultimately engineering

does. Yeah. You ultimately engineering is constrained by the rules of physics which are annoyingly strict. you know,

gravity, the fact that air resistance will increase exponentially with speed, all those things are fixed. If you start going into saying, let's operate by the rules of psychology, not the rules of

physics, your actual opportunity to resolve a paradox or to escape a tradeoff, is much much greater. Yeah,

you can make the train really, really slow, but make the journey fantastic.

Um, we had William Hey on the podcast a couple of weeks ago. Not to name drop, but one of the most interesting, terrifying and actually brilliant man who got everything right except timing.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's Well, well, let's but he literally mindbending thing he said was that the next phase of warfare will be cognitive warfare and how

Well, it's already happening.

Well, well, quite but like Yeah, it just sort of it was it was pretty terrifying.

But yeah, you're right. But although I don't think he I'm not sure he ever wanted to be prime minister in the end.

I don't know.

It's a very funny business, isn't it? I

mean, the people I cuz we we're in politics about ambition as well because in politics you can say you're ambitious as like and you want a top cabinet job. Everybody's fine with that. But as soon as you ask somebody if

that. But as soon as you ask somebody if they want to be prime minister, if you ask one of these new Labour MPs, well Margaret Thatcher famously denied it, didn't she? When asked.

Yeah. Yeah. But it's just it's it's a it's a British problem about ambition that we have. I I think I think I suppose I mean you could argue

that the I think it was the Hessel Tide ambition that people always joke sort of kaoshed him that when he was at Oxford.

Yeah.

Um and there is that very strong thing of um don't tempt fate.

Yeah.

So there's a company I dealt with which is really funny. Okay. which is um they actually very brilliant company called Airport and I I spoke to them uh uh they collect your luggage from your home in

the home counties and they basically check it in at Heathrow or Gatwick.

Okay, if you're flying on EasyJet, British Airways, a few other airlines and actually that's sometimes really really useful because you can now take public transport to the airport, you get your luggage collected a few days beforehand.

If you got a really early flight, you basically can go straight through to departures. I've used it quite a few

departures. I've used it quite a few times and I I had to ask the question, have you ever lost a piece of luggage?

No. I said, maybe you should tell people that. And they go, we're too frightened.

that. And they go, we're too frightened.

It's tempting fate.

You see what I mean? You know that actually they you know, they've never had a single failure, which is pretty damn impressive. But it's it's something

damn impressive. But it's it's something other it's a bit like claiming to be a design classic, okay? Or using the phrase luxury. Other people can say it

phrase luxury. Other people can say it of you, but you can't say it of yourself. And so that would be similar.

yourself. And so that would be similar.

Should be prime minister. That's very

effective marketing. Would make a great prime minister. Brilliant marketing. I

prime minister. Brilliant marketing. I

want to be prime minister. Terrible

marketing. It's a bit, you know, it's a bit like someone, you know, it's a bit like someone declaring themselves, you know, a car manufacturer. The

Peugeot 205 design classic. Okay.

Everybody else can say that. You can't.

You can't say it.

Yeah. And it's similar, you know, I am funny. Doesn't work. Okay. doesn't work.

funny. Doesn't work. Okay. doesn't work.

Okay. You can either prove it or you can get other people to verify it, but you can't actually claim it of yourself.

Yeah. Uh Rory, thanks so much. It's been

a brilliant combination. Comedy,

marketing politics technology everything. Thanks so much. It's been

everything. Thanks so much. It's been

great.

Anytime. Absolutely delighted. Thank you

ever so much.