It's All In What We Perceive

Some days I am so completely blown away by someone else's brilliance that I have to go, "What's the point of writing a blog post?"

That's how I feel after having seen Rory Sutherland's Ted talk.

Now I know I may be coming late to this party, seeing as the video was posted in October on the Ted site. But in light of my post on The Virtual Economy and our discussion about virtual goods on this past week's BeanCast, I find his points to be highly relevant.

If I take away one thing from this video, it's that our job as marketers is not to reinvent the world, but simply to position it. And Rory's examples do a brilliant job of pointing this out.

Just because we don't all get to work on branding the coolest, smartest products, doesn't mean we can't do cool and brilliant work. Sometimes, as he shows in one of his examples, we're given breakfast food. No matter what we do, we can't make the food itself better than it is. But that's not our job. Our job is to change the experience of interacting with that breakfast food and to make it more appealing to a buyer. Anyone can make a BMW sexy or a Bud Light a comedy-inspiring vehicle. It takes someone truly special to change the perception of processed grains.

This is a must see video for anybody involved in product positioning or creative. It will inspire you to know that ideas can always transcend the limitations of the product. Thanks to David Vogeleer for passing this on to me today.