A couple weeks ago, we started a most interesting blog series based on a collection of videos posted by Inc.com that features 21 videos worth more than an MBA. It is a very intriguing idea, that spending time efficiently watching very smart videos could help you in your career. The videos are nothing short of amazing! It is incredible what you can learn from these insights in 17 – 20 minute Ted Talk videos. We recapped the first 3 videos on the list that all talked about motivation. The next 3 videos were all about management. This week’s 3 videos are on marketing.
- Life Lessons from an Ad Man
This week’s first video on marketing comes from Rory Sutherland. He gives us “Life Lessons From an Ad Man”. The video is 19 minutes and packed full of laughs! Mr. Sutherland explains that what he has realised after years in advertising, intangible value, or perceived value (what is created by advertising and marketing) can be a substitute for using up labor or limited resources in the creation of resources. He gives the example of a train that goes from London to Paris. They wanted to make the travel experience better and came up with spending £6 billion pounds to improve the tracks and the result was making the 3 and ½ hour journey 40 minutes shorter. He ponders that this is a rather expensive way and wild use of resources for very little improvement. He makes a valid point with his joke that you could, in fact, have spent less by employing all the world’s super models to walk up and down the train and hand out wine and the passengers would likely be much happier and even want the ride to be slower. Similarly, he compares placebos used in medical testing explaining that the placebos cost less to produce and often achieve the same results as the medications but don’t have negative side effects either. You also have to see the video to hear his story about Frederick the Great and his rebranding of the potato in historic Prussia and Germany. Real value involves making things (the labor, the parts, etc.). Marketing can give the impression that things have value without actually making anything new.
- How to Get Your Ideas to Spread
Seth Godin is the speaker in our second Ted Talk video which is about “How to Get Your Ideas to Spread”. If you’ve ever heard the saying “best thing since sliced bread”, you might be surprised to know that for the first 15 years after sliced bread was invented; nobody bought it and never sold. It wasn’t until Wonder Bread came along and spread the word about sliced bread, that it started to sell. The way that so many companies have “spread the word” in the past with commercial television ads that were shown over and over again. Since that doesn’t exist anymore and television advertising isn’t working the same way it used to, brands now try so many things just to try to find what works. It is no longer about interrupting people with billions of dollars’ worth of ads, but deciding what can spread.
- Where Good Ideas Come From
Our 3rd and final video feature for today is Steven Johnson talking about “Where Good Ideas Come From”. He explores what environments lead to good ideas and what is the space for creativity? He has toured the world looking for shared patterns in productive in both natural and human environments. All of the idea concepts come from a single moment, but is a new network in the brain. Ideas come together to lead to innovation. When people from different backgrounds can collaborate, that is where new ideas and innovation come from. So many of the most important new ideas come from at the conference table, but not in the lab or situations where people are by themselves. Often times when we think we’ve had an epiphany and came up with a great idea is that it actually has faded into view over a long time. He proposes that based on this line of thinking that we spend time connecting to collaborate on ideas rather than trying to protect them as intellectual property. We will advance more and the collaboration will bring about more ideas in the future. He gives a great example of how collaboration brought about satellite imagery.
