This TED Talk  by Rory Sutherland – Life lessons from an ad man was really interesting and it was about advertising. Advertising adds value to a product by changing our perception, rather than the product itself. Rory Sutherland makes the daring assertion that a change in perceived value can be just as satisfying as what we consider “real” value — and his conclusion has interesting consequences for how we look at life.

Advertisement creates an intangible/perceived/badge value for a product. For example, in the video,Rory talk about potatoes back then where people dread consuming potatoes or even grow them but potatoes could be the cheapest and high source of energy. So, the rulers of the country decided to make the potatoes as royal potatoes with highly guarded security (not really!). In the end, everyone wants to consume the “royal potatoes.” What the rulers did here was to re-brand the image of potatoes and create a market value.

Marketing creates an impulse for buying and fundamental opportunities are important to change human behavior. In the video, Rory gave the example of Shreddies creating intangible value to the product WITHOUT even changing the product. They came up with  Diamond Shreddies and combo pack of both Shreddies, which had a higher market value. This shows a clear fundamental opportunity taken by Shreddies through market research.

Definitely worth watching!:)