Show Notes
What is the value of surprise to us in becoming more interesting? And how does one of today's most stimulating thinkers stay so consistently surprising himself? In Part 1 of a two part conversation, Adam sits down with Rory Sutherland - Vice Chairman of Ogilvy, behavioural science evangelist, and endlessly fascinating reframer of what we thought we knew - to talk about why surprise matters. As he points out, sometimes the right thing to be is completely unsurprising: there will always be, after all "a market for "the drearily predictable." But if you're trying to change behaviour - to challenge, disrupt, or eat the big fish - then surprise becomes essential. Because the brain isn't built to notice what it expects. It's built to notice what breaks the pattern.
In this first half of the conversation, Rory explores:
What is ‘Just the right amount of weird’? Why it is that we give disproportionate attention to what find surprising How all human perception is context-dependent, and why recontexting is so powerful Why the healthiest creative human activity is to try on as many frames as we can What it means to bring a Game Theorist’s mindset to everything we do - even the way we take holidays. And why, in fact, surprise might be the most cost-efficient way to earn attention there is. __ Let's Make This More Interesting is a podcast from eatbigfish: the strategic consultancy that helps ambitious Challengers to grow.
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Thanks to our editor Ruth and our producer Rachael. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from Let's Make This More Interesting
In this episode Adam explores what it takes to use surprise effectively as an integral part of a challenger’s strategy. His guest is Kyrsten Halley, the former Marketing Director of Aldi UK, part of a team that for years has been putting the purposefully unexpected into the drudgery of the weekly grocery shop. One of the key ways Aldi has grown to become one of the Big Four in the UK.
In this episode of Let’s Make This More Interesting from eatbigfish, Adam explores what it takes to be more interesting in a very different medium: stop frame animation. Madga Osinska, today’s guest, is a director of short films and commercials for the world-famous Aardman Animations, besides her own projects, and a winner of jury prizes throughout Europe for her work.
What does it take to be interesting enough for people to brave the New York City subway to come and join you on a cold, wet, Tuesday night? Every Tuesday night? For two years?
How engaging do you have to be, really, to break inertia? To disrupt beliefs? And what does that take in your communication and in your culture?
In this second part of the conversation with Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman of Ogilvy and behavioural science evangelist, we discuss why Rory feels we are thinking in entirely the wrong way about the payback for marketing, and the different way we need to go about finding those big, engaging ideas that will disproportionately impact the success of our business.