Rory Sutherland

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.

It may well have been the client who had that idea.

They are held responsible for every single unit of cost they incur, year by year by year by year.

You cannot offset any of those costs against the value you created in 2023 by having a huge idea.

Let me give you an example.

There's an enormous idea for a very large, enormous American, let's say, fast-moving consumer goods company.

There's an idea conceived by Ogilvy Australia.

It has made that company in excess of a billion dollars in the last 10 years.

It's still running.

It runs in something like 100 markets.

Still useful today.