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The 11 rules of succeeding with nonsensical ideas, according to an advertising legend

Hacking The Unconscious

Rory Sutherland explores the stories and psychology behind the most influential marketing campaigns in history, and smashes apart received wisdom with a look at iconoclastic ideas. 
 
Advertising guru Rory Sutherland is a world-leading proponent of behavioural economics. In Hacking the Unconscious, he looks at how this emerging science is used by marketers to influence us and challenges us to reassess which ideas we hold dear. 
 
In Part 1, Marketing, Rory asks why certain ad campaigns, such as Nike's 'Just Do It' and the MND Ice Bucket Challenge, cast such a spell over us. Looking at ten all-time great campaigns - including Coke's iconic 'Hilltop' ad, Dove's 'Campaign for Real Beauty' and De Beers' 'A Diamond is Forever' - he discusses their success with the creative minds that conceived them. 
 
Along the way, he ponders the allure of altruism, asks whether ads can be art, considers what 'Big Data' means for the future of marketing, and shows how a powerful health campaign transformed attitudes, and saved lives. 
 
Part 2, Thought Cages, sees Rory confounding conventional wisdom with his intriguing, subversive and controversial concepts. Is education always a good thing? Would we be better off selecting our MPs by lottery? Plus, he looks at the dilemma the NHS faces - to be successful, or to be loved; speculates if we're really as rational as we think; exposes the fallacy of market research; shows how businesses play on our susceptibility to commitment; and wonders whether online retail will ever replicate the magic of the traditional shopping experience. 
 
As he explores how 'psycho-logic', behavioural quirks and mind hacks could drive change, he formulates a magical series of radical ideas that may provide new solutions to society's problems. 
 
Contributors include novelist Fay Weldon, onetime CEO of Cambridge Analytica, Alexander Nix, New York Times bestseller Bryan Caplan, MP Jess Philips and Nassim Nicholas Taleb, statistician and author of The Black Swan. 
 
Copyright © 2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd 
Presented by Rory Sutherland 
Produced by Steven Rajam and Michael Surcombe 
 
Hacking the Unconscious 
Featuring: Shelina Janmohamed, Steve Henry, Roger Greenaway, Nicola Raihani, Sara Pascoe, Geoffrey Miller, Daryl Fielding, J Courtney Sullivan, Fay Weldon, Scott Bedbury, Liz Dolan, Byron Sharp, Alexander Nix, Nick Hall, Lord Norman Fowler, Sammy Harari, Sir Nick Partridge, Jacqueline Gold, Jennifer Jacquet, Matt Brosnan 
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 1-12 May 2017 
 
Thought Cages 
Featuring: Natalie Perera, Bryan Caplan, Nicholas Gruen, Jess Philips, Diana Fleischman, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Helena Cronin, Dave Trott, Ben Page, Nichola Raihani, Robin Hanson, Oliver Payne, Natalie Nahai, Leigh Caldwell, Jonathan Haidt, Owain Service, Sue Benson, Dan Ariely, Katherine Lewis, David Dalziel 
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 19-30 November 2018

Rory Sutherland explores the stories and psychology behind the most influential marketing campaigns in history, and smashes apart received wisdom with a look at iconoclastic ideas. 
 
Advertising guru Rory Sutherland is a world-leading proponent of behavioural economics. In Hacking the Unconscious, he looks at how this emerging science is used by marketers to influence us and challenges us to reassess which ideas we hold dear. 
 
In Part 1, Marketing, Rory asks why certain ad campaigns, such as Nike's 'Just Do It' and the MND Ice Bucket Challenge, cast such a spell over us. Looking at ten all-time great campaigns - including Coke's iconic 'Hilltop' ad, Dove's 'Campaign for Real Beauty' and De Beers' 'A Diamond is Forever' - he discusses their success with the creative minds that conceived them. 
 
Along the way, he ponders the allure of altruism, asks whether ads can be art, considers what 'Big Data' means for the future of marketing, and shows how a powerful health campaign transformed attitudes, and saved lives. 
 
Part 2, Thought Cages, sees Rory confounding conventional wisdom with his intriguing, subversive and controversial concepts. Is education always a good thing? Would we be better off selecting our MPs by lottery? Plus, he looks at the dilemma the NHS faces - to be successful, or to be loved; speculates if we're really as rational as we think; exposes the fallacy of market research; shows how businesses play on our susceptibility to commitment; and wonders whether online retail will ever replicate the magic of the traditional shopping experience. 
 
As he explores how 'psycho-logic', behavioural quirks and mind hacks could drive change, he formulates a magical series of radical ideas that may provide new solutions to society's problems. 
 
Contributors include novelist Fay Weldon, onetime CEO of Cambridge Analytica, Alexander Nix, New York Times bestseller Bryan Caplan, MP Jess Philips and Nassim Nicholas Taleb, statistician and author of The Black Swan. 
 
Copyright © 2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd 
Presented by Rory Sutherland 
Produced by Steven Rajam and Michael Surcombe 
 
Hacking the Unconscious 
Featuring: Shelina Janmohamed, Steve Henry, Roger Greenaway, Nicola Raihani, Sara Pascoe, Geoffrey Miller, Daryl Fielding, J Courtney Sullivan, Fay Weldon, Scott Bedbury, Liz Dolan, Byron Sharp, Alexander Nix, Nick Hall, Lord Norman Fowler, Sammy Harari, Sir Nick Partridge, Jacqueline Gold, Jennifer Jacquet, Matt Brosnan 
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 1-12 May 2017 
 
Thought Cages 
Featuring: Natalie Perera, Bryan Caplan, Nicholas Gruen, Jess Philips, Diana Fleischman, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Helena Cronin, Dave Trott, Ben Page, Nichola Raihani, Robin Hanson, Oliver Payne, Natalie Nahai, Leigh Caldwell, Jonathan Haidt, Owain Service, Sue Benson, Dan Ariely, Katherine Lewis, David Dalziel 
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 19-30 November 2018

Rory Sutherland

This is a breakthrough book: Mother Reality makes sense in her own way. She yields her secrets to practitioners, almost never to academics - something psychologists, economists and non-skin in the game people, no matter what they say, are functionally unable to grasp. And the book is funny as hell: I smiled and laughed at every paragraph. 
Furthermore, this is the first such treatise written by someone who had true contact with reality via something called a P/L. 
And this is wonderfully applicable to about everything in life, from how to announce airplane delays to how to handle unsold opera tickets. 
Buy two copies of this book in case one is stolen.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, scholar and former trader; author of the Incerto.

Reading Alchemy was, as its title promised, the process of turning paper and print into gold. Veins of wisdom regarding human functioning emerge regularly and brilliantly from the pages. Don't miss this book.

Robert Cialdini, bestselling author of Influence, Yes!, The Small BIG and Pre-suasion

Robert Trivers, evolutionary biologist and author of Deceit and Self-Deception

Sutherland’s book touches on many facets of life, but all come down to the importance of “psycho-logic”, or non-rational factors, in how we make decisions and how problems can be solved

Rory Sutherland is one of the all-time great raconteurs, polymaths, and ad men. But this book shows his hidden depths. Within this fun, quirky, hilarious page-turner, he develops a profound critique of technocratic hubris and fetishised economics. Sutherland helps us rediscover the profound wisdom behind everyday human reasoning, and invites us to explore the magic that happens when we trust a bit less in our focus groups and optimization models, and trust a bit more in our creative eccentricity.

Geoffrey Miller, evolutionary psychologist, author of The Mating Mind, Spent, and What Women Want

Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant … wonderfully heretical, naughty and funny …  Uncommon sense on stilts

Jules Goddard, Fellow of the Centre for Management Development at London Business School and co-author of Uncommon Sense, Common Nonsense

Buy this book for the footnotes alone… As a committed devotee of rationalism, who thinks there is not enough of it in this world, I rationally ought to hate this book. Instead I loved it. It’s full of great insights.

Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist

Sutherland captivates in a narrative full of intellectual treats that explain much of the behaviours in the world around us. This illogically logical read is a must read for anyone who is in the people business!

Dilip Soman, Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Science and Economics, University of Toronto

The Magic of Original Thinking in a World of Mind-Numbing Conformity

‘A breakthrough book. Wonderfully applicable to everything in life, and funny as hell.’ Nassim Nicholas Taleb 
 
 
Why is Red Bull so popular – even though everyone hates the taste? Why do countdown boards on platforms take away the pain of train delays? And why do we prefer stripy toothpaste? 
 
Discover the alchemy behind original thinking, as TED Talk superstar and Ogilvy advertising legend Rory Sutherland reveals why abandoning logic and casting aside rationality is the best way to solve any problem. 
 
In his first book he blends cutting-edge behavioural science, jaw-dropping stories and a touch of branding magic on his mission to turn us all into idea alchemists. He shows how economists, businesses and governments have got it all wrong: we are not rational creatures who make logical decisions based on evidence. Instead, the big problems we face every day, whether as an individual or in society, could very well be solved by thinking less logically. To be brilliant, you have to be irrational.

Rory Sutherland

Praise for Alchemy

This is a breakthrough book: Mother Reality makes sense in her own way. She yields her secrets to practitioners, almost never to academics - something psychologists, economists and non-skin in the game people, no ma ...

Revelatory and entertaining

Reading Alchemy was, as its title promised, the process of turning paper and print into gold. Veins of wisdom regarding human functioning emerge regularly and brilliantly from the pages. Don't miss this book ...

This is a breakthrough book: Mother Reality makes sense in her own way. She yields her secrets to practitioners, almost never to academics - something psychologists, economists and non-skin in the game people, no ma ...

Revelatory and entertaining

Reading Alchemy was, as its title promised, the process of turning paper and print into gold. Veins of wisdom regarding human functioning emerge regularly and brilliantly from the pages. Don't miss this book ...

This is a breakthrough book: Mother Reality makes sense in her own way. She yields her secrets to practitioners, almost never to academics - something psychologists, economists and non-skin in the game people, no ma ...

Revelatory and entertaining

Reading Alchemy was, as its title promised, the process of turning paper and print into gold. Veins of wisdom regarding human functioning emerge regularly and brilliantly from the pages. Don't miss this book ...

Books by Rory Sutherland

Articles featuring Rory Sutherland

The 11 rules of succeeding with nonsensical ideas, according to an advertising legend

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