Rory Sutherland

But in high level physics, the opposite of a good idea might be another good idea.

I think there was an understanding then and the remuneration of agencies respected this because you were paid on commission.

So if you had a big idea and you came up with a campaign and the client spent millions running the campaign, you made money from that campaign for years after you'd conceived it.

So it was rather like having royalties on a book.

We didn't realize that at the time.

Then media independence came along, and so we had to be paid by the hour, like lawyers and management consultants, and we've never recovered because it's a catastrophic way to be paid.

And the reason it's a catastrophic way to be paid, my argument is that marketing is actually fat-tailed.

So is innovation.

R&D, pharmaceutical research, science.

In other words, 5% to 10% of what you do delivers perhaps 110% of the value.

And therefore, paying people by the hour and demanding that every quantum of effort has to be matched to a quantum of value creation in some neat proportion

This is, so the way marketing, never mind advertising that.

Okay, right.

Let's look at the whole of marketing as a discipline within an organization of which advertising is not necessarily a very important part.

You know, for a lot of organizations, it may be, you know, relatively trivial what they actually spend on bought communication.

On the other hand, you know, how you design your reception or, you know, whatever.

That still affects the application of psychology to value creation.

Let's say you have a brilliant idea, and the value of that idea goes on for 10 years.

I've seen this happen all the time.

The agency, let's say an agency had the idea.