Rory Sutherland (@rorysutherland) header
Rory Sutherland (@rorysutherland) profile picture

Vice Chairman, Ogilvy Group The Spectator's Wiki Man.

Sevenoaks and Deal, Kent
Joined February 2007
"steadily conflated the purpose of marketing with the efficient delivery of marketing activity" — exactly the same thing has happened in law. It is less about the law and all about the delivery of legal services.
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Has anyone here been to Abilene? According to George Hamilton IV, not only is it the "prettiest town I've ever seen", but "women there don't treat you mean". Both seem like fairly strong recommendations, to be honest. TripAdvisor should include the latter in its scoring system.
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Apollo 17 - Gene Cernan's first steps on the moon as recorded by Harrison Schmitt from the Lunar Module window using the 16mm DAC camera. Upscaled, interpolated to 60 FPS and mission audio sync by Moonpans Original source footage: Apollo Flight Journal
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I assume this insane explosion in demands for verification is a response to the threat from AI. On the other hand it could just be general corporate paranoia what annoys me is that there isn't much variation in security between sites which really matter (such as your email and your banking applications) and sites like my electricity bill (where, to be honest, I wouldn't be that bothered if someone hacked into them). I spend about £4 a day on electricity on average and I don't care who knows it. I suppose if I had a cannabis farm in the attic, I might feel differently.
It's getting crazy out here.
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jeans are meant to show that you are laidback and casual while making you feel the complete opposite. Trousers on the other hand, essentially feel like sweatpants.
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Yessssss... "Marketing is the business discipline of future customer value creation and subsequent value capture. Not advertising, demand generation, communications, or any particular collection of executional activities.
This is easily the best one-page summary of marketing myopia I have yet seen. Off Kilter 237: Regeneration or Dilution?, by @pworthington offkilter.substack.com/p/off…
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You noticed this too. Generally I avoid the Cotswolds as it is a Londoner's idea of what the countryside is like, for people who are happy to drive for 2.5 hours without getting to the seaside. But EV charging infrastructure defies logic. Essex adapted really quickly. Brighton was absolutely appalling.
Turns out the hardest place to charge an EV , is a 2,500 person village in the cotswolds. Nothing for miles around Even the fast chargers are slow, expensive and have one bay
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Residents of my parents' village have managed to eradicate road markings and it makes a big difference to the character.
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I feel like they stared into my stared into my scared soul and felt/seen what I felt/seen. Great piece.
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Replying to @rorysutherland
I’ve followed up my earlier article with some transaction data. Of 44,680 homes resold within five years in H1 2026: 16.4% sold at a nominal loss. 32.2% lost money after costs. 76.5% after costs and inflation. penwardenreview.com/2026/10/…
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Prepare the gallows!
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman believes people owning RAM is wasteful, and that it belongs in data centers instead. "From a global allocation perspective, actually, it’s quite terrible to have everyone have a bunch of the world’s limited supply of DRAM sitting in their own computer."
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My dad, 90, has just revealed he has never in his life worn a pair of jeans
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This is easily the best one-page summary of marketing myopia I have yet seen. Off Kilter 237: Regeneration or Dilution?, by @pworthington offkilter.substack.com/p/off…
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I asked a large logistics company in Europe how they were using AI and they told me they can't use AI because of German workers councils. It was weird because I didn't ask them how they were cutting headcount. I asked them how they were using AI.
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Ordered airpods off amazon.ie off what looked like official apple page, many good reviews. Package delivered, opened it, and it was pack of fucking chicken stock cubes. Almost impossible to report this to amazon, and when I called a human they said "just return it"
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Towards the end of his career Daniel Kahneman was asked what the most important finding from all his years of research was. His answer: make it easy. It might sound like a statement of the obvious. But Kahneman makes the point that, although people intuitively know if they make a behaviour easier it’ll happen more, they consistently and significantly underestimate the scale of impact of small bits of friction. As this brilliant cartoon by @marketoonist suggests, businesses are too willing to leave friction in the process. They think people will push through barriers to get to their amazing products. But in reality, the smallest pieces of friction tend to have an outsized effect on behaviour! The implication is simple - for every customer touchpoint, identify even the tiniest barriers along the way, and if possible, take them out. That can have a bigger effect on behaviour than giving more and more reasons for why people should use your service. *** If you'd like to learn more, I'm running a training session on behavioural science for better marketing on December 10th. More details here: tickettailor.com/events/astr…
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🚨🇨🇳 A Chinese glass company just turned the RIOTS in France into FREE advertising! Hengxinfeng filmed NOTHING, just posted a video of its unbreakable windows on social media, and went VIRAL. EPIC TROLLING!
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This is a trend across cultural and business capitals. A lot of 90s London nostalgia is mourning a time when an entry-level salary in a creative job paid for a scuzzy but livable apartment and unlocked fun hospitality and workplace socializing.
The reason young people used to move to NYC was to work in industries that blended employment and the NYC perks of said employment. The poverty elite. Not sure if that strata really exists anymore. Read: New York Magazine, Let Them Eat Crab Cakes (2000)
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USAF Museum – at Dayton, OH
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When literally half your listening time is a single podcast, you can be sure you've found gold 🏅 @myfirstmilpod is the best ive found. And the @rorysutherland episode makes up at least 1/3 of my listening. Worth a repeat for anyone interested in marketing and psychology.
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