The regular practice of religion also encourages such beneficial effects on mental health as less depression, higher self-esteem and greater family and marital happiness. In Part 2: An Alchemist's Tale (or Why Magic Really Still Exists), Sutherland shares one question on a test an ad agency used for prospective copywriters: Here are two identical 25 cent coins. Sell me the one on the right. One candidate answered he would take the coin, dip it in Marilyn Monroe's bag and then say, "I'll sell you a genuine 25-cent coin as owned by Marilyn Monroe." (I'm quoting. Perhaps "quarter" is an unfamiliar term?) The lesson? "We don't value things; we value their meaning." I remember my older sons wanting a Pokemon Charizard card in the early 1990s. It was "rare". Despite there being hundreds of thousands printed, there was a perception of rarity because so many more of the other cards were out there in the market. For them, there was value applied. A person doing recruitment may think they want to hire the best person for the job, but subconsciously they want to avoid hiring someone who is bad. Low variance will be as appealing as high average performance. Hiring a group of people makes for less conventional candidates. You can never be fired for being logical. If your reasoning is sound and unimaginative, even if you fail, it is unlikely you will take much blame. It is much easier to be fired for being illogical than unimaginative. After a spell teaching at a grammar school (and finding his colleagues far more challenging than the pupils), Rory applied to a number of advertising and marketing agencies and was offered a planning role by Ogilvy & Mather. He was asked to leave the Planning Department and moved to the Creative Department instead as a junior copywriter. He worked on accounts including American Express, Royal Mail, and the relatively obscure software company Microsoft.

In some ways, we need markets because prices are the only reliable means of getting consumers to tell the truth about what they want. It is often easier to make something very, very cheap than it is to make what was expensive (but good) much cheaper and still be profitable… We think we want quality — but actually, we just want value: we don’t want a fair price, we want a great deal.” First, I requested a review because the subtitle presented ("The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life") caught my attention and I'd hoped to glean some tidbits for my wife's business. It was a curiosity that another subtitle...and a different title were associated with the ISBN! Another subtitle: "The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense." The other title: "The Thing Which Has No Name". Huh. I knew that this was previously published in some form in the UK, but normally I can find a match for what was on the available list. (I did find a TEDTalk of a similar name to the "The Thing" version.) Sutherland is in advertising, hence the subtitle of my edition. Perhaps advertising agencies are valuable simply because they create a culture in which it is acceptable to ask daft questions and make foolish suggestions.

Despite approaching Microsoft with the idea of a system whereby people could share Office documents over the nascent internet and being roundly rejected, Rory went on to help found OgilvyOne, the group’s dedicated digital and direct agency. He remains an advocate of so-called ‘360 Degree Branding’ ensuring brands have a coherent, joined-up presence in all relevant media areas. Rory was appointed Head of Copy, and shortly afterwards Creative Director of Ogilvy. He has also served as the president of the Institute of Practioners in Advertising (IPA) - the first ‘creative’ to do so. Ogilvy is now part of the massive WPP ad and media group and count Ford, Unilever, IBM, American Express, BP, and British Airways amongst their top accounts.

The model of reason as evolved to defend decisions makes reason not the brain's science / R&D function, but the PR and legal department.If we allow the world to be run by logical people, we will only discover logical things. But in real life, most things aren't logical - they are psycho-logical (i.e. involve emotion with post-hoc rationalisation). Economic theory is an insufficient way to identify value proposition - both in B2B and B2C scenarios. Loss avoidance and personal status gains are a much stronger motivators than prospects for economic gains Satisficing is the observation that when people make decisions in an uncertain setting, they care not only about the expected outcome but also the possible variance. They are prepared to pay a premium not only for something better, but to ensure that it is not terrible. This is the reason people buy brands.