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Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
‘A breakthrough book. Wonderfully applicable to everything in life, and funny as hell.’ Nassim Nicholas Taleb
To be brilliant, you have to be irrational
Why is Red Bull so popular – even though everyone hates the taste? Why do countdown boards on platforms take away the pain of train delays? And why do we prefer stripy toothpaste?
We think we are rational creatures. Economics and business rely on the assumption that we make logical decisions based on evidence.
But we aren’t, and we don’t.
In many crucial areas of our lives, reason plays a vanishingly small part. Instead we are driven by unconscious desires, which is why placebos are so powerful. We are drawn to the beautiful, the extravagant and the absurd – from lavish wedding invitations to tiny bottles of the latest fragrance. So if you want to influence people’s choices you have to bypass reason. The best ideas don’t make rational sense: they make you feel more than they make you think.
Rory Sutherland is the Ogilvy advertising legend whose TED Talks have been viewed nearly 7 million times. In his first book he blends cutting-edge behavioural science, jaw-dropping stories and a touch of branding magic, on his mission to turn us all into idea alchemists. The big problems we face every day, whether as an individual or in society, could very well be solved by letting go of logic and embracing the irrational.
To be brilliant, you have to be irrational
Why is Red Bull so popular – even though everyone hates the taste? Why do countdown boards on platforms take away the pain of train delays? And why do we prefer stripy toothpaste?
We think we are rational creatures. Economics and business rely on the assumption that we make logical decisions based on evidence.
But we aren’t, and we don’t.
In many crucial areas of our lives, reason plays a vanishingly small part. Instead we are driven by unconscious desires, which is why placebos are so powerful. We are drawn to the beautiful, the extravagant and the absurd – from lavish wedding invitations to tiny bottles of the latest fragrance. So if you want to influence people’s choices you have to bypass reason. The best ideas don’t make rational sense: they make you feel more than they make you think.
Rory Sutherland is the Ogilvy advertising legend whose TED Talks have been viewed nearly 7 million times. In his first book he blends cutting-edge behavioural science, jaw-dropping stories and a touch of branding magic, on his mission to turn us all into idea alchemists. The big problems we face every day, whether as an individual or in society, could very well be solved by letting go of logic and embracing the irrational.
384 pages, Paperback
First published May 7, 2019
About the author
Rory Sutherland
9 books356 followersRory Sutherland is the vice-chairman of Ogilvy UK and the co-founder of its Behavioural Science Practice. He is the author of Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas that Don’t Make Sense, writes The Spectator’s Wiki Man column, presents several series for Radio 4, serves on the advisory board of the Evolution Institute and is former president of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. His TED talks have been viewed more than 7 million times.
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January 3, 2020The premise of this book by an ad man is that sometimes you have to use non-obvious or seemingly irrational ways to sell things to people because we don't all behave with strict rationality. ('Ideas' in the title refers almost exclusively to making and selling products, and occasionally to selling behaviour changes.) This is potentially very interesting and does have some very good insights about framing choices and changing minds, if you sift through the chaff.
Unfortunately there is a lot of chaff, and most of it is shed by the massive Worzel Gummidge army of strawmen the author assembles to support his arguments.
For example, the author explains that US companies give terrible holiday to workers because it's considered to dent productivity. He says: "There is an abundance of supporting evidence" for the fact that giving workers generous holiday doesn't hinder and probably helps productivity, but nevertheless "in the left-brain logical model of the world, productivity is proportional to hours worked, and a doubling of holiday time must lead to a corresponding 4% fall in salary."
This is absolute garbage. It is not a "logical" response to ignore something for which there is abundant evidence: it's very stupid. The author again and again sets up a 'logical' position that is nothing of the sort to prove his thesis that it's clever to appeal to people's irrational instincts and gut feelings. But he never stops to note that eg "I will get more work out of people if I never give them time off" is just as much a gut-feeling irrational instinct as "I will buy this if the packet is long and thin".
It's full of this sort of spurious crap. He claims that the idea of increasing sales by putting prices up is "to an economist, entirely illogical", which...I mean, the shelves are literally full of economist books about this stuff. He says that an economist would answer the question "Why do people go to restaurants?" with "Because they are hungry" and would not think about any other reasons, just as an economist would design a chair only to support weight and not to be comfortable, because economists apparently don't want either to sell chairs or to sit in them. He says that miso soup is popular only because "we" (Westerners) see Japanese people drinking it and assume it must be good--not because anyone likes it. There is no explanation of how come Japanese people like it (Japanese people aren't 'we'), or acknowledgement that maybe he just personally doesn't like miso soup: no, miso soup is a scam and you, a Western person, have bought into the scam because you've been suckered.
Basically it's full of statements that don't stand up to critical thought. He notes sarcastically that women spend two trillion dollars a year on makeup and are "let off rather lightly for this level of extravagance. If men spent two trillion dollars a year on something totally irrational--building model train sets, say--they would be excoriated for it." I'm not even going to bother unpicking the layers of sexism, privilege-blindness, nonsense, and outright untruth in this ridiculous paragraph, but it's fascinating that this jerk has spent his entire career as well as this entire book finding ways to sell stuff that isn't a rational necessity to people, then condemns women for buying it.
AND WHILE I AM HERE: there's a chapter on the placebo effect which says perfectly sensible things about exploiting the effect for everyone's benefit (eg why not colour aspirin red, because it feels more dramatic to take red pills) and then suggests that for the same reason we should encourage the use of homeopathy. That just sums this book up--Mr. Too Clever For Logic apparently can't see any difference between better marketing of an effective product and selling something as medicine when we know for a fact it doesn't work. There is a point where marketing becomes active dishonesty and this careers over it.
*And* it's shoddy, with a bunch of text errors. "There are five main reasons" for X behaviour he says, and lists four. He says a website does X clever thing in 'a single sentence' and then gives the quote, which is several sentences. It appears Penguin didn't bother to have this edited, and I can't really blame them as the temptation would be to put a red pen through so much of it.
There are some genuinely good ideas in here which serve as useful tips on working out exactly how a company is trying to sell you stuff, but I can't recommend ploughing through the waffle, nonsense, strawmen, and self-satisfaction to reach them. Bah.
Unfortunately there is a lot of chaff, and most of it is shed by the massive Worzel Gummidge army of strawmen the author assembles to support his arguments.
For example, the author explains that US companies give terrible holiday to workers because it's considered to dent productivity. He says: "There is an abundance of supporting evidence" for the fact that giving workers generous holiday doesn't hinder and probably helps productivity, but nevertheless "in the left-brain logical model of the world, productivity is proportional to hours worked, and a doubling of holiday time must lead to a corresponding 4% fall in salary."
This is absolute garbage. It is not a "logical" response to ignore something for which there is abundant evidence: it's very stupid. The author again and again sets up a 'logical' position that is nothing of the sort to prove his thesis that it's clever to appeal to people's irrational instincts and gut feelings. But he never stops to note that eg "I will get more work out of people if I never give them time off" is just as much a gut-feeling irrational instinct as "I will buy this if the packet is long and thin".
It's full of this sort of spurious crap. He claims that the idea of increasing sales by putting prices up is "to an economist, entirely illogical", which...I mean, the shelves are literally full of economist books about this stuff. He says that an economist would answer the question "Why do people go to restaurants?" with "Because they are hungry" and would not think about any other reasons, just as an economist would design a chair only to support weight and not to be comfortable, because economists apparently don't want either to sell chairs or to sit in them. He says that miso soup is popular only because "we" (Westerners) see Japanese people drinking it and assume it must be good--not because anyone likes it. There is no explanation of how come Japanese people like it (Japanese people aren't 'we'), or acknowledgement that maybe he just personally doesn't like miso soup: no, miso soup is a scam and you, a Western person, have bought into the scam because you've been suckered.
Basically it's full of statements that don't stand up to critical thought. He notes sarcastically that women spend two trillion dollars a year on makeup and are "let off rather lightly for this level of extravagance. If men spent two trillion dollars a year on something totally irrational--building model train sets, say--they would be excoriated for it." I'm not even going to bother unpicking the layers of sexism, privilege-blindness, nonsense, and outright untruth in this ridiculous paragraph, but it's fascinating that this jerk has spent his entire career as well as this entire book finding ways to sell stuff that isn't a rational necessity to people, then condemns women for buying it.
AND WHILE I AM HERE: there's a chapter on the placebo effect which says perfectly sensible things about exploiting the effect for everyone's benefit (eg why not colour aspirin red, because it feels more dramatic to take red pills) and then suggests that for the same reason we should encourage the use of homeopathy. That just sums this book up--Mr. Too Clever For Logic apparently can't see any difference between better marketing of an effective product and selling something as medicine when we know for a fact it doesn't work. There is a point where marketing becomes active dishonesty and this careers over it.
*And* it's shoddy, with a bunch of text errors. "There are five main reasons" for X behaviour he says, and lists four. He says a website does X clever thing in 'a single sentence' and then gives the quote, which is several sentences. It appears Penguin didn't bother to have this edited, and I can't really blame them as the temptation would be to put a red pen through so much of it.
There are some genuinely good ideas in here which serve as useful tips on working out exactly how a company is trying to sell you stuff, but I can't recommend ploughing through the waffle, nonsense, strawmen, and self-satisfaction to reach them. Bah.
June 3, 2019
A whirlwind of hot air
Rory Sutherland really wants you to know how smart he is. Not only that, but he also wants you to know how stupid everyone else is. Consultants, accountants, economists, stock market analysts: all idiots. According to Mr. Sutherland, only creative people like him who don't succumb to blindly following reason, logic and science will be successful.
The book reminds me of that friend who keeps bragging about their fantastic stock market picks - always neglecting to mention when an investment was a dud. It is full of just-so stories and ad-hoc rationalisations of that one time where a price increase boosted sales or when reducing costs led profits to fall. There is no underlying theory or falsifiable claim in the whole book, and in fact the author often claims that "the opposite of a good idea is also a good idea", making the whole exercise pretty pointless. He completely ignores the whole field of behavioural economics and writes about how sometimes people behave rationally, but makes no attempt to try to specify when, how or why that happens, or where this insight can be reliably applied.
In between, he explains why he is pro Trump (because the fact that his actions are impossible to predict makes him a good negotiator), why quotas for women are not useful (we just need to make STEM more attractive to women) and why racism isn't really about the colour of people's skin but about the strance accents of POCs.
It's only redeeming quality is that the book is at stretches quite enjoyable to read, and Sutherland knows how to sell himself and tell a story. Overall though it is hard to recommend a book that's so clearly lacking any real insight or substance.
Rory Sutherland really wants you to know how smart he is. Not only that, but he also wants you to know how stupid everyone else is. Consultants, accountants, economists, stock market analysts: all idiots. According to Mr. Sutherland, only creative people like him who don't succumb to blindly following reason, logic and science will be successful.
The book reminds me of that friend who keeps bragging about their fantastic stock market picks - always neglecting to mention when an investment was a dud. It is full of just-so stories and ad-hoc rationalisations of that one time where a price increase boosted sales or when reducing costs led profits to fall. There is no underlying theory or falsifiable claim in the whole book, and in fact the author often claims that "the opposite of a good idea is also a good idea", making the whole exercise pretty pointless. He completely ignores the whole field of behavioural economics and writes about how sometimes people behave rationally, but makes no attempt to try to specify when, how or why that happens, or where this insight can be reliably applied.
In between, he explains why he is pro Trump (because the fact that his actions are impossible to predict makes him a good negotiator), why quotas for women are not useful (we just need to make STEM more attractive to women) and why racism isn't really about the colour of people's skin but about the strance accents of POCs.
It's only redeeming quality is that the book is at stretches quite enjoyable to read, and Sutherland knows how to sell himself and tell a story. Overall though it is hard to recommend a book that's so clearly lacking any real insight or substance.
May 30, 2019
Delightful read. Breezy and irreverent. The author talks about scenarios where a purely "logical" approach can lead to worse outcomes for business.
Had some thought-provoking points. But wasn't particularly well structured.
My key takeaways were:
1. 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
2. The way a question is phrased can influence the decision. For instance, if a waiter asks “Sparkling” or “Bottled” before serving you water at a restaurant, you’re unlikely to say “Tap”
3. A Management Consultant would define something narrowly, automate or streamline it, and then regard the savings as profit -- regardless of it's downside consequences. Be wary of narrowly defined problems
4. Value is in the hearts and minds of the valuer. You don’t need to tinker with atomic structure to turn lead into gold. You can appeal to human psychology to change perceptions
5. Always remember to scent the soap. Don’t just sell utility, sell the experience. Why people use things, and what thing is meant for, are not necessarily the same things
Had some thought-provoking points. But wasn't particularly well structured.
My key takeaways were:
1. 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
2. The way a question is phrased can influence the decision. For instance, if a waiter asks “Sparkling” or “Bottled” before serving you water at a restaurant, you’re unlikely to say “Tap”
3. A Management Consultant would define something narrowly, automate or streamline it, and then regard the savings as profit -- regardless of it's downside consequences. Be wary of narrowly defined problems
4. Value is in the hearts and minds of the valuer. You don’t need to tinker with atomic structure to turn lead into gold. You can appeal to human psychology to change perceptions
5. Always remember to scent the soap. Don’t just sell utility, sell the experience. Why people use things, and what thing is meant for, are not necessarily the same things
December 29, 2019
3x longer than it needs to be, and nothing new if you’ve read any pop/business psychology before (or have a humanistic background).
the tips are better for life hackers and marketers than attempts to improve the world, so i’d disregard his comments on social/governance issues, which he comes off as pretty ignorant about.
i will say that the anecdotes and short chapters make it easy and enjoyable to read. and if you haven’t read similar books, it might introduce new information on why psychological tweaks are often more effective than material or technological ones.
the tips are better for life hackers and marketers than attempts to improve the world, so i’d disregard his comments on social/governance issues, which he comes off as pretty ignorant about.
i will say that the anecdotes and short chapters make it easy and enjoyable to read. and if you haven’t read similar books, it might introduce new information on why psychological tweaks are often more effective than material or technological ones.
August 4, 2020
This book should come with a warning for its display of sexism and white, wealthy middle-aged eurocentric male views. If you can get past that, you might find some of the ideas interesting.
The acknowledges his children for their help on political correctness. Well, either his children did not do a good enough job, or he did not listen to them.
The acknowledges his children for their help on political correctness. Well, either his children did not do a good enough job, or he did not listen to them.
July 24, 2021
Важко точно визначити ЦА - якщо для раціоналістів та прихильників економічної теорії, то чи прислухаються?
Якщо для маркетологів - то й наче і так це знаємо.
Є цікаві ідеї, але, oh man, знецінюючи і відкидаючи важливе😑
Кейси і унікальні випадки важливі для ринку так, але не вони його драйвлять
Якщо для маркетологів - то й наче і так це знаємо.
Є цікаві ідеї, але, oh man, знецінюючи і відкидаючи важливе😑
Кейси і унікальні випадки важливі для ринку так, але не вони його драйвлять
August 8, 2019
I was given an advance readers copy of this book.
While ostensibly a book for advertisers and marketers, I wanted to read this because I wondered why Red Bull is so popular, why some of the ads that seem so awful to me are nevertheless successful. But mostly, I wanted another glimpse into how our minds work. This book did not disappoint.
It was both insightful and humorous. “The advertisements which bees find useful are flowers – and if you think about it, a flower is simply a weed with an advertising budget.” And the forthright honesty of a Porsche ad was a bit crude but quite attention getting, before, as the author noted, “...I imagine the Porsche dealership stripped it of its franchise.”
This book has pages of footnotes, generally quite entertaining footnotes.
Although I have zero interest in becoming a a marketer of any sort, I do think this book is good for anyone who wants to be entertained and likes knowing a bit of psychological behind decisions. Again, not being in advertising, I don't know if this has new information for such people or not, but for me, it was mostly enjoyable. I did lose a bit of interest in the last few pages about how to brand my non-existent product, but overall, it kept my interest.
While ostensibly a book for advertisers and marketers, I wanted to read this because I wondered why Red Bull is so popular, why some of the ads that seem so awful to me are nevertheless successful. But mostly, I wanted another glimpse into how our minds work. This book did not disappoint.
It was both insightful and humorous. “The advertisements which bees find useful are flowers – and if you think about it, a flower is simply a weed with an advertising budget.” And the forthright honesty of a Porsche ad was a bit crude but quite attention getting, before, as the author noted, “...I imagine the Porsche dealership stripped it of its franchise.”
This book has pages of footnotes, generally quite entertaining footnotes.
Although I have zero interest in becoming a a marketer of any sort, I do think this book is good for anyone who wants to be entertained and likes knowing a bit of psychological behind decisions. Again, not being in advertising, I don't know if this has new information for such people or not, but for me, it was mostly enjoyable. I did lose a bit of interest in the last few pages about how to brand my non-existent product, but overall, it kept my interest.
August 3, 2019
I had a difficult time getting into this book, an uncorrected proof received for review from the publisher through LibraryThing. Barely forty pages over a miss and miss (as opposed to hit or miss) month and a half. As the illogic would have it, 3.5 hours spent waiting for the chance to be told the documents I brought to renew my driver license were insufficient (grrr) gave me an extended window to dig in, and dig in I did. Lots of margin notes and sticky note flags. Sifting them for review relevance is yet another challenge! [For the publisher, there are some editorial comments at the end.]
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.
Second, footnotes have become a rarity in the nonfictions I've read in the past 10 plus years. Endnotes also seem to be going out of vogue. David McCullough maddeningly doesn't include any notes!, but I think the most heinous trick is what I can't find the term for, so I've taken to calling "un-noted endnotes" (those notes you stumble upon after you've finished, and it takes nearly a complete re-read to figure out where they came from and how they apply.) Anyway, Sutherland uses footnotes. And typographical signs. Those aren't as friendly as enumeration, in my opinion.
In the Introduction, Sutherland claims the "alchemy of the book's title is the science of knowing what economists are wrong about." I don't quite agree with that...oh, he does cite science here and there, but I think his thesis is more empirical in nature. He sees T as the irrational entity he is, and cites his irrational approach to trade as being more effective than a logical Hillary because "[i]rrational people are much more powerful than rational people because their threats are so much more convincing." Probably true...but no reason to ever put an irrational person in charge of anything. In my opinion. Sutherland says
More from the Introduction - and why I was wondering if I'd ever get out of it - Sutherland has a subsection of a subsection where he warns "Be careful before calling something nonsense." Ordinarily, ,that might be good advice, but he explains with an example of a "1996 survey on the place of religion in public life in America [he's British]" by the Heritage Institute that found
In his Part 1, On the Uses and Abuses of Reason, bold title of a subsection states "How You Ask the Question Affects the Answer". Spot on - see the studies of Elizabeth Loftus. (And substantiate my point about the Heritage Institute survey. Wisdom in hiring for diversity - ten people hiring one person each does not result in more diversity than one person hiring 10 people. He notes correctly that one person choosing a group will instinctively use a broader variance than one person hiring one person.
Good quote from Cedric Villani, mathematician and winner of a Fields Medal: "There are key two steps a mathematician uses. He uses intuition to guess the right problem and the right solution and then logic to prove it."
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.
Another way to attribute value is to massage the semantics of a product, situation, activity. His example, "downsizing" as a voluntary move from a no longer needed larger home into a smaller one can be perceived (or communicated) as a decision of preference rather than a settlement of financial need. Sutherland says,
Part 3: Signalling, Sutherland talks of signalling expenditure in different ways to engender trust.
So, Part 4 (Subconscious Hacking: Signalling to Ourselves) had my mind screaming "NO!!" a bit. I should confide that Sutherland mentions Jonathan Haidt a few times and quotes from Haidt's book The Righteous Mind; I thought Haidt's research, approach and conclusions flawed terribly in that book. But I did liek this reminder from Haidt: "The conscious mind thinks it's the Oval Office, when in reality it's the press office." (We're rationalizing after the fact.) Sutherland appears to be a fan/proponent of placebos and those probably do work for his target audiences (recall, he's in advertising...he wants to sell and advertising prey on the weak minded and easily influenced - my assessment, not explicitly his.) In one section he says "To recalibrate our immune response to levels appropriate to the more benign conditions we experience in everyday modern life, it may be necessary to deploy some benign bullshit." The footnote tacked to this was...and I cringe as I type this..."If that means homeopathy, so be it." NOOOOO!!!!! Homeopathy, in addition to being a ridiculous scam, is far from benign! People ignorant of the nonsense (note I do not use his "non-sense") can suffer and even hurt/infect others if their malady is untreated. His opening example (that I'm only first referencing here instead at the top of this review) of Red Bull as a successful commercial placebo - he says hacking the unconscious; people buy it even though it tastes bad, comes in a smaller than normal size, and is expensive - might prompt and unconscious inference of small size implying higher potency. Those of us who are resistant to most advertising think rather "that's an expensive gimmick you're hawking there".
From his Part 6: Psychophysics (his term), sometimes small space consideration trick the mind - a Boeing 787 has no more room than a 777, but the brilliant designers (one of which is a psychologist) created a slightly larger space in the entrance creates an "impression of airiness". And this line "Even giving a tax a different name can have a colossal effect on whether people are willing to pay it." One name comes to my mind: "lottery".
Here's a good quote: "Behaviour comes first; attitude changes to keep up." That flies in the face of convention that attitudes drive behavior. Give people recycling bins and require them to separate...they probably become more environmentally aware. He says "Give people a reason and they may not supply the behaviour; but give people a behaviour and they'll have no problem supplying the reason themselves.
So...despite the raw beginning, and plenty of quibbling points, there are nuggets of value here. They just take work to find...which may quite be intentional, but I don't know. Stir things up, take risks, definitely question "we've always done it this way" (that's my reduction...he dances around similar concepts), always question anyway (mine again, but like art, it's what I took away. And I got another jumping off point, a book to find : Nassim Taleb's Antifragile.
-------------------
Notes to editor, which may have already been caught or are too late to correct:
Page 10 of my proof copy, Introduction, "Some Things Are Dishwasher-proof..." section, paragraph says "In theory, you can't be too logical, but in practice you can. Yet we ever seem to believe that it is possible for logical solutions..." should read never. (Quibbling? No, accuracy...and it caught my eye...I probably missed dozens of other ...suggested ... edits!)
Page 37, section heading "THE FOUR S-ES", Sutherland says immediately underneath "There are five main reasons why we ..." But he lists only four (yes, one is technically only pronounced as an "s".
Page 160, section heading "Psycho-logical Design:...", second full paragraph, "by removing the recording function from Walkmans, Sony produced a that which had a lower range of functionality..." Something needs to be between "a" and "that'; I suspect it should read "a product that"
Page 349, footnote "As John Lennon observed, 'Time spent doping nothing is rarely wasted'..." John Lennon didn't say that and the attribution didn't start showing up until long after his death.
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.
Second, footnotes have become a rarity in the nonfictions I've read in the past 10 plus years. Endnotes also seem to be going out of vogue. David McCullough maddeningly doesn't include any notes!, but I think the most heinous trick is what I can't find the term for, so I've taken to calling "un-noted endnotes" (those notes you stumble upon after you've finished, and it takes nearly a complete re-read to figure out where they came from and how they apply.) Anyway, Sutherland uses footnotes. And typographical signs. Those aren't as friendly as enumeration, in my opinion.
In the Introduction, Sutherland claims the "alchemy of the book's title is the science of knowing what economists are wrong about." I don't quite agree with that...oh, he does cite science here and there, but I think his thesis is more empirical in nature. He sees T as the irrational entity he is, and cites his irrational approach to trade as being more effective than a logical Hillary because "[i]rrational people are much more powerful than rational people because their threats are so much more convincing." Probably true...but no reason to ever put an irrational person in charge of anything. In my opinion. Sutherland says
Being slightly bonkers can be a good negotiating strategy: being rational means you are predictable, and being predictable makes you weak. Hillary thinks like an economists, while Donald is a game theorist, and is able to achieve with one tweet what would take Clinton four years of congressional infighting. That's alchemy; you may hate it, but it works.So Alchemy is chaotic lunacy. And I don't know that "it works"...despite the rest of the book. On the surface, and the whole, so many of the successes illustrated seem like accidents. (That quote was painful to type. T as a "theorist"?! And no rational adult can ever not feel immature using that term to twit something - guess that pegs me, right? But you might be wrong...)
More from the Introduction - and why I was wondering if I'd ever get out of it - Sutherland has a subsection of a subsection where he warns "Be careful before calling something nonsense." Ordinarily, ,that might be good advice, but he explains with an example of a "1996 survey on the place of religion in public life in America [he's British]" by the Heritage Institute that found
1. Churchgoers are more likely to be married, less likely to be divorced or single and more likely to manifest high levels of satisfaction in their marriage.Well, I did say he was British. Here's where the rational reader steps in: the Heritage Institute is a profoundly right-wing entity with an agenda and would it surprise anyone to know that the questions might be skewed to achieve the results desired? Sutherland says "Religion feels incompatible with modern life because it seems [my emphasis] to involve delusional beliefs, but if the above results [again, know the source before citing] came from a trial of a new drug, we would want to add it to tap water. Just because we don't know why it works, we should not be blind to the fact that it does." He used one of those typographical footnotes to say "Take that, Dawkins!" Mind you, I'm 22 pages into this book and thinking "what a pile of woo he's peddling!" I suspect Sutherland does not know of the 2006 STEP Project ("Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer") that found no difference between prayer and placebo in coronary artery bypass surgery patient recovery...except that there was a slight increase... in complications ... in patients who knew they were being prayed for! Okay...it did get better, if a little more than scattered in doing so.
2. Church attendance is the most important predictor of marital stability and happiness.
3. The regular practice of religion helps poor people move out of poverty. Regular church attendance, for example, is particularly instrumental in helping young people escape the poverty of inner-city life.
4. Regular religious practice generally inoculates individuals against a host of social problems, including suicide, drug abuse, out-of-wedlock births, crime and divorce.
5. 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.
6. In repairing damage caused by alcoholism, drug addiction and marital breakdown, religious belief and practice are a major source of recovery.
[And...wait for it...]
7. Regular practice of religion is good for personal physical health: It increases longevity, improves one's chances of recovery from illness and lessens the incidence of many killer diseases.
In his Part 1, On the Uses and Abuses of Reason, bold title of a subsection states "How You Ask the Question Affects the Answer". Spot on - see the studies of Elizabeth Loftus. (And substantiate my point about the Heritage Institute survey. Wisdom in hiring for diversity - ten people hiring one person each does not result in more diversity than one person hiring 10 people. He notes correctly that one person choosing a group will instinctively use a broader variance than one person hiring one person.
The reason for this is that with one person we look for conformity, but with ten people we look for complementarity.Good stuff, and puts into words something already in my mental toolbox that was yet unnamed. He does talk about accidents being a part of discovery: "for all we obsess about scientific methodology, [Andre] Geim [discoverer of graphene] knows it is far more common for a mixture of luck, experimentation and instinctive guesswork to provide the decisive breakthrough; reason only comes into play afterwards." Isaac Asimov is credited with saying "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..."" But oddly, in the same section, he talks about businesses and politics becoming more boring and sensible than they needs to be. And we "approve reasonable things too quickly, while counterintuitive ideas are frequently treated with suspicion." And on the next page, he observes "We should test counterintuitive things - because no one else will." The lesson is that the disruptive one will get attention, whether good or bad, and sometimes the disruption works.
Good quote from Cedric Villani, mathematician and winner of a Fields Medal: "There are key two steps a mathematician uses. He uses intuition to guess the right problem and the right solution and then logic to prove it."
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.
Another way to attribute value is to massage the semantics of a product, situation, activity. His example, "downsizing" as a voluntary move from a no longer needed larger home into a smaller one can be perceived (or communicated) as a decision of preference rather than a settlement of financial need. Sutherland says,
Create a name, and you've created a norm.
Part 3: Signalling, Sutherland talks of signalling expenditure in different ways to engender trust.
One of the reasons why customer service is such a strong indicator of how we judge a company is because we are aware that it costs money and time to provide. A company which is willing to spend time after you have bought and paid for a product to make sure you are not disappointed with it is more likely to be trustworthy and decent than the one which loses all interest in you as soon as the cheque has cleared.And it's often the small touches that signal perceived cost. My wife includes little gift bags with her customers' orders. They cost her fractions, and the varying contents are often things the customer would never look twice at in a store, but those customers treasure the thought...and cost...and care that goes into including those trinkets. As Sutherland says, "costliness carries meaning".
So, Part 4 (Subconscious Hacking: Signalling to Ourselves) had my mind screaming "NO!!" a bit. I should confide that Sutherland mentions Jonathan Haidt a few times and quotes from Haidt's book The Righteous Mind; I thought Haidt's research, approach and conclusions flawed terribly in that book. But I did liek this reminder from Haidt: "The conscious mind thinks it's the Oval Office, when in reality it's the press office." (We're rationalizing after the fact.) Sutherland appears to be a fan/proponent of placebos and those probably do work for his target audiences (recall, he's in advertising...he wants to sell and advertising prey on the weak minded and easily influenced - my assessment, not explicitly his.) In one section he says "To recalibrate our immune response to levels appropriate to the more benign conditions we experience in everyday modern life, it may be necessary to deploy some benign bullshit." The footnote tacked to this was...and I cringe as I type this..."If that means homeopathy, so be it." NOOOOO!!!!! Homeopathy, in addition to being a ridiculous scam, is far from benign! People ignorant of the nonsense (note I do not use his "non-sense") can suffer and even hurt/infect others if their malady is untreated. His opening example (that I'm only first referencing here instead at the top of this review) of Red Bull as a successful commercial placebo - he says hacking the unconscious; people buy it even though it tastes bad, comes in a smaller than normal size, and is expensive - might prompt and unconscious inference of small size implying higher potency. Those of us who are resistant to most advertising think rather "that's an expensive gimmick you're hawking there".
From his Part 6: Psychophysics (his term), sometimes small space consideration trick the mind - a Boeing 787 has no more room than a 777, but the brilliant designers (one of which is a psychologist) created a slightly larger space in the entrance creates an "impression of airiness". And this line "Even giving a tax a different name can have a colossal effect on whether people are willing to pay it." One name comes to my mind: "lottery".
Here's a good quote: "Behaviour comes first; attitude changes to keep up." That flies in the face of convention that attitudes drive behavior. Give people recycling bins and require them to separate...they probably become more environmentally aware. He says "Give people a reason and they may not supply the behaviour; but give people a behaviour and they'll have no problem supplying the reason themselves.
So...despite the raw beginning, and plenty of quibbling points, there are nuggets of value here. They just take work to find...which may quite be intentional, but I don't know. Stir things up, take risks, definitely question "we've always done it this way" (that's my reduction...he dances around similar concepts), always question anyway (mine again, but like art, it's what I took away. And I got another jumping off point, a book to find : Nassim Taleb's Antifragile.
-------------------
Notes to editor, which may have already been caught or are too late to correct:
Page 10 of my proof copy, Introduction, "Some Things Are Dishwasher-proof..." section, paragraph says "In theory, you can't be too logical, but in practice you can. Yet we ever seem to believe that it is possible for logical solutions..." should read never. (Quibbling? No, accuracy...and it caught my eye...I probably missed dozens of other ...suggested ... edits!)
Page 37, section heading "THE FOUR S-ES", Sutherland says immediately underneath "There are five main reasons why we ..." But he lists only four (yes, one is technically only pronounced as an "s".
Page 160, section heading "Psycho-logical Design:...", second full paragraph, "by removing the recording function from Walkmans, Sony produced a that which had a lower range of functionality..." Something needs to be between "a" and "that'; I suspect it should read "a product that"
Page 349, footnote "As John Lennon observed, 'Time spent doping nothing is rarely wasted'..." John Lennon didn't say that and the attribution didn't start showing up until long after his death.
August 1, 2019
To be honest my rating is 4.5 stars but the Goodreads' system doesn't allow rating "1/2 star".
This book first flipped my brain upside down, then it mashed my brain vigorously and I found that my brain became very pulpy and mushy after finished reading this book.
The author successfully proved that conventional logic and wisdom fails more than what people think through many real life examples in the book. The central message of the book is that "No one knows anything!". Even Physicists who are Nobel Laureates managed to invent/proved their work through a large element of serendipity and accidents.
However, the author also cautioned the readers and the world that innovation is very expensive and very hard mainly because every single human has the tendency to focus on "not doing wrong" instead of "doing great". Humans have the tendency to be defensive than to be offensive. Hence innovation is a tall order unless everyone is open to it.
The word "Alchemy" in the book title is more of a metaphor of saying "magic", like how the alchemists in the old days intended to turn low cheap metal (lead) into great metal (gold). Although the alchemists failed to do so in chemistry, the author believes we can still make alchemy happens in other areas (eg: business, policy making, human interactions etc) by using very cheap techniques but making great products/services.
After reading this book, I have to allow my brain to enter the fridge for a long time so that it can be frozen and switched back to the original solid form....though it will never be as same as the original unmashed form.
This book first flipped my brain upside down, then it mashed my brain vigorously and I found that my brain became very pulpy and mushy after finished reading this book.
The author successfully proved that conventional logic and wisdom fails more than what people think through many real life examples in the book. The central message of the book is that "No one knows anything!". Even Physicists who are Nobel Laureates managed to invent/proved their work through a large element of serendipity and accidents.
However, the author also cautioned the readers and the world that innovation is very expensive and very hard mainly because every single human has the tendency to focus on "not doing wrong" instead of "doing great". Humans have the tendency to be defensive than to be offensive. Hence innovation is a tall order unless everyone is open to it.
The word "Alchemy" in the book title is more of a metaphor of saying "magic", like how the alchemists in the old days intended to turn low cheap metal (lead) into great metal (gold). Although the alchemists failed to do so in chemistry, the author believes we can still make alchemy happens in other areas (eg: business, policy making, human interactions etc) by using very cheap techniques but making great products/services.
After reading this book, I have to allow my brain to enter the fridge for a long time so that it can be frozen and switched back to the original solid form....though it will never be as same as the original unmashed form.
May 8, 2021
Одна з найкорисніших фахових книжок, що я читала. Хоч автор іноді досить впевнено спрощує те, чого не варто, але спостереження за людьми як споживачами - надзвичайно точні й потрібні.
September 25, 2020
Great cover; content was just meh.
January 22, 2020
Should be required reading for all the technocrats weaned at the altar of Logos. Question assumptions, ask silly questions, and remember that people (mostly) aren't Homo Econominus.
___
The economy is not a machine. It is a highly complex system. Machines don't allow for magic, complex systems do.
Engineering does not allow for magic. Psychology does.
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).
This book is not an attack on the many healthy uses of logic and reason, but it is an attack on a dangerous kind of logical overreach, which demands that every solution should have a convincing rationale before it can even be considered or attempted.
Give yourself the permission to suggest slightly silly things, or ask silly questions.
Irrational people are much more powerful than rational people, because their threats are so much more convincing.
Being slightly bonkers can be a good negotiating strategy: being rational means you are predictable, and being predictable makes you weak.
My problem with Marxism is that it makes too much sense.
Once you accept that there may be a purpose to things that are hard to justify, you will come to another conclusion: it is perfectly possible to be both rational and wrong.
Logical ideas often fail because logic demands universally applicable laws but humans, unlike atoms, are not consistent enough.
Two amounts one is prepared to spend in a store : "zero" or "a lot". Purchasing expensive treats or finding bargains both have a dopamine rush.
In solving political disputes "rationally" we assume that people interact with all other people in the same way, independent of context, but we don't. Economic exchanges are heavily affected by context, and attempts to shoehorn human behaviour into a one size fits all straitjacket are flawed from the outset - they are driven by our love of certainty. This can only come from theory, which by its very universal nature is free from context.
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.
The reason we do not ask basic questions is because once our brain provides a sound answer, we stop looking for better ones; with a little alchemy, better answers can be found.
Loss of power and control can create far stronger feelings of annoyance than loss of punctuality. However we cannot distinguish between the two causes, and are more likely to say "I'm angry cuz my bloody plane's late" rather than "I'm angry because inadequate information has left me powerless".
Problem solving is a strangely status conscious job: there are high-status approaches and low-status approaches (think consulting/coding vs design).
Science seems to fall short of its ideals whenever the theoretical elegance of the solution or the intellectual credentials of the solver are valued above the practicality of an idea.
Perhaps advertising agencies are valuable simply because they create a culture in which it is acceptable to ask daft questions and make foolish suggestions.
If you want a simple life, unladen by weird decisions, do not marry anyone who has worked in the creative department of an advertising agency. For good and ill, the job instills a paranoid fear of the obvious and fosters the urge to question every orthodoxy and to rail against every consensus.
When I ask an economist, the answer always boils down to bribing people.
Reasoning is a priceless tool for evaluating solutions, and essential if you wish to defend them, but it doesn't always do a good job of finding those solutions in the first place.
Amazon can be a very big business selling one thing to 47 people, but if it can't sell 47 things to one person, there's a limit to how big it can be.
There is a difference between 10% of the time for 10 people, and 100% of the time for 1 person.
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.
There is much potential to increase the level of diversity in employment, education or politics without imposing quotas.
"Find one or two things your boss is rubbish at and be quite good at them". Complementary talent is far more valuable than conformist talent.
The prejudice we apply to a lone black or female candidate might also apply to a lone "anything" candidate.
Test counterintuitive things, because no one else will.
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.
We don't value things, we value their meaning. What they are is determined by the laws of physics, but what they mean is determined by the laws of psychology.
The nature of our attention affects the nature of our experience.
Creating a name for a behaviour implicitly creates a norm for it.
Even when designing for the able-bodied, it is a good principle to assume that the user is operating under constraints (e.g. injured, hands fulls etc).
By removing the record function from the Walkman, Sony clarified what the device was for. Technical design term for this is "affordance".
Lower range of functionality, far greater potential to change behaviour.
You might think that people instinctively want to make the best decision, but there is a stronger force that animates business decision-making: the desire to not get fired or blamed. The best insurance against blame is to use conventional logic in every decision.
In nature it is often necessary for something that can't be faked. Information is free, sincerity is not.
Without a distinctive brand identity, there is no incentive to improve your product - and no way for customers to choose well, or to reward the best manufacturer. (brand equity, goodwill)
Without the feedback loop made possible by distinctive and distinguishable petals (for flowers) or brands, nothing can improve.
One problem (among many) of Soviet-style command economies is that they only work if people know what they want and need, and can define and express that preference adequately. But that is impossible, because not only do people not know what they want, they don't even know why they like the things they buy.
In some ways, we need markets because prices are the only reliable means of getting consumers to tell the truth about what they want.
The mammalian brain has a deep-set preference for control and certainty. The single best investment made by the London Underground for increasing passenger satisfaction was adding dot matrix displays to inform travellers of the time outstanding before the next train arrived.
Big data carries with it the promise of certainty, but in truth it usually provides a huge amount of information about a narrow field of knowledge.
People do not choose brand A over brand B because they think brand A is better, but because they are more certain it is good. (minimising variance)
Habit, which can often appear irrational, is perfectly sensible if your purpose is to avoid unpleasant surprises.
Blame, unlike credit, always finds a home.
Defensive decision-making: not to maximise overall welfare, but minimise damage to the decision maker in event of a negative outcome.
The job of a designer is hence that of a translator. To play with the source material of objective reality in order to create the right perceptual and emotional outcome.
Compared to Brits, Americans mostly speak the same language, but tend to interpret it more literally.
If you put "low in fat" or any other health indicators on the packaging, you'll make the contents taste worse.
The old advertising belief in having a unique selling proposition also exploits the focusing illusion. Products are easier to sell if they offer one quality that others do not. Even if this feature is slightly gratuitous, by highlighting a unique attribute, you amplify the sense of loss a buyer might feel if they buy a competing product.
One way a business can reduce their environmental footprint is to sell a product in concentrated form, which reduces packaging and distribution costs, and can also reduce the volume of chemicals used.
It is only the behaviour that matters, not the reason for adopting it. Give people a reason and they may not supply the behaviour, but give them a behaviour and they'll have no problem supplying the reason themselves.
Soap was sold on its ability to increase your attractiveness more than on its hygienic powers, and while it contained many chemicals to improve hygiene, it was also scented to make it attractive - supporting the unconscious promise of the advertising rather than the rational value of the product. The scent was not to make it effective, but to make it attractive to consumers.
If we are in denial about unconscious motivation, we forget to scent the soap.
Highways are high on optimality but low on optionality.
Meetings without food (e.g. biscuits) take on a slightly unpleasant timbre by violating the most basic principles of hospitality.
It is widely known in the training community that the biggest gain from a company's investment in training comes in the form of employee loyalty.
___
The economy is not a machine. It is a highly complex system. Machines don't allow for magic, complex systems do.
Engineering does not allow for magic. Psychology does.
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).
This book is not an attack on the many healthy uses of logic and reason, but it is an attack on a dangerous kind of logical overreach, which demands that every solution should have a convincing rationale before it can even be considered or attempted.
Give yourself the permission to suggest slightly silly things, or ask silly questions.
Irrational people are much more powerful than rational people, because their threats are so much more convincing.
Being slightly bonkers can be a good negotiating strategy: being rational means you are predictable, and being predictable makes you weak.
My problem with Marxism is that it makes too much sense.
Once you accept that there may be a purpose to things that are hard to justify, you will come to another conclusion: it is perfectly possible to be both rational and wrong.
Logical ideas often fail because logic demands universally applicable laws but humans, unlike atoms, are not consistent enough.
Two amounts one is prepared to spend in a store : "zero" or "a lot". Purchasing expensive treats or finding bargains both have a dopamine rush.
In solving political disputes "rationally" we assume that people interact with all other people in the same way, independent of context, but we don't. Economic exchanges are heavily affected by context, and attempts to shoehorn human behaviour into a one size fits all straitjacket are flawed from the outset - they are driven by our love of certainty. This can only come from theory, which by its very universal nature is free from context.
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.
The reason we do not ask basic questions is because once our brain provides a sound answer, we stop looking for better ones; with a little alchemy, better answers can be found.
Loss of power and control can create far stronger feelings of annoyance than loss of punctuality. However we cannot distinguish between the two causes, and are more likely to say "I'm angry cuz my bloody plane's late" rather than "I'm angry because inadequate information has left me powerless".
Problem solving is a strangely status conscious job: there are high-status approaches and low-status approaches (think consulting/coding vs design).
Science seems to fall short of its ideals whenever the theoretical elegance of the solution or the intellectual credentials of the solver are valued above the practicality of an idea.
Perhaps advertising agencies are valuable simply because they create a culture in which it is acceptable to ask daft questions and make foolish suggestions.
If you want a simple life, unladen by weird decisions, do not marry anyone who has worked in the creative department of an advertising agency. For good and ill, the job instills a paranoid fear of the obvious and fosters the urge to question every orthodoxy and to rail against every consensus.
When I ask an economist, the answer always boils down to bribing people.
Reasoning is a priceless tool for evaluating solutions, and essential if you wish to defend them, but it doesn't always do a good job of finding those solutions in the first place.
Amazon can be a very big business selling one thing to 47 people, but if it can't sell 47 things to one person, there's a limit to how big it can be.
There is a difference between 10% of the time for 10 people, and 100% of the time for 1 person.
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.
There is much potential to increase the level of diversity in employment, education or politics without imposing quotas.
"Find one or two things your boss is rubbish at and be quite good at them". Complementary talent is far more valuable than conformist talent.
The prejudice we apply to a lone black or female candidate might also apply to a lone "anything" candidate.
Test counterintuitive things, because no one else will.
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.
We don't value things, we value their meaning. What they are is determined by the laws of physics, but what they mean is determined by the laws of psychology.
The nature of our attention affects the nature of our experience.
Creating a name for a behaviour implicitly creates a norm for it.
Even when designing for the able-bodied, it is a good principle to assume that the user is operating under constraints (e.g. injured, hands fulls etc).
By removing the record function from the Walkman, Sony clarified what the device was for. Technical design term for this is "affordance".
Lower range of functionality, far greater potential to change behaviour.
You might think that people instinctively want to make the best decision, but there is a stronger force that animates business decision-making: the desire to not get fired or blamed. The best insurance against blame is to use conventional logic in every decision.
In nature it is often necessary for something that can't be faked. Information is free, sincerity is not.
Without a distinctive brand identity, there is no incentive to improve your product - and no way for customers to choose well, or to reward the best manufacturer. (brand equity, goodwill)
Without the feedback loop made possible by distinctive and distinguishable petals (for flowers) or brands, nothing can improve.
One problem (among many) of Soviet-style command economies is that they only work if people know what they want and need, and can define and express that preference adequately. But that is impossible, because not only do people not know what they want, they don't even know why they like the things they buy.
In some ways, we need markets because prices are the only reliable means of getting consumers to tell the truth about what they want.
The mammalian brain has a deep-set preference for control and certainty. The single best investment made by the London Underground for increasing passenger satisfaction was adding dot matrix displays to inform travellers of the time outstanding before the next train arrived.
Big data carries with it the promise of certainty, but in truth it usually provides a huge amount of information about a narrow field of knowledge.
People do not choose brand A over brand B because they think brand A is better, but because they are more certain it is good. (minimising variance)
Habit, which can often appear irrational, is perfectly sensible if your purpose is to avoid unpleasant surprises.
Blame, unlike credit, always finds a home.
Defensive decision-making: not to maximise overall welfare, but minimise damage to the decision maker in event of a negative outcome.
The job of a designer is hence that of a translator. To play with the source material of objective reality in order to create the right perceptual and emotional outcome.
Compared to Brits, Americans mostly speak the same language, but tend to interpret it more literally.
If you put "low in fat" or any other health indicators on the packaging, you'll make the contents taste worse.
The old advertising belief in having a unique selling proposition also exploits the focusing illusion. Products are easier to sell if they offer one quality that others do not. Even if this feature is slightly gratuitous, by highlighting a unique attribute, you amplify the sense of loss a buyer might feel if they buy a competing product.
One way a business can reduce their environmental footprint is to sell a product in concentrated form, which reduces packaging and distribution costs, and can also reduce the volume of chemicals used.
It is only the behaviour that matters, not the reason for adopting it. Give people a reason and they may not supply the behaviour, but give them a behaviour and they'll have no problem supplying the reason themselves.
Soap was sold on its ability to increase your attractiveness more than on its hygienic powers, and while it contained many chemicals to improve hygiene, it was also scented to make it attractive - supporting the unconscious promise of the advertising rather than the rational value of the product. The scent was not to make it effective, but to make it attractive to consumers.
If we are in denial about unconscious motivation, we forget to scent the soap.
Highways are high on optimality but low on optionality.
Meetings without food (e.g. biscuits) take on a slightly unpleasant timbre by violating the most basic principles of hospitality.
It is widely known in the training community that the biggest gain from a company's investment in training comes in the form of employee loyalty.
May 12, 2022
Sometimes the logical solution is not the best one.
Congratulations! You've now acquired all the information that this book has to offer. Pat yourself on the back and save yourself a lot of time.
Oh - you mean this wasn't news to you?
Alchemy, or "Think Outside the Box Sometimes: The Book," chooses as its thesis the shocking and revelatory idea that sometimes, you need to think creatively to solve difficult problems (and to market better, but the book covers both marketing and big ideas in the rest of the world).
The problem, to put it bluntly, is that this isn't really something that people didn't know already, and it's certainly not something that takes nearly 400 pages to explain. It's a quote you hang on the wall: "Think Differently."
Now, some of the examples are cool. But they get tedious very quickly. Unfortunately, the book is just far too many chapters that take as a jumping-off point some permutation of "think differently" and then provide several examples of times when that worked.
This leads me to another problem: This book is plagued by selection bias. There are many times where rational ideas are in fact the best ones. There are plenty of times where logical thinking trumps emotional thinking. And there are also times where I questioned his evaluation of what constitutes an overreliance on logic and what constitutes, ahem, Alchemy.
For example, in one of the most baffling (and uh, borderline tasteless) anecdotes right near the end of the book, he discusses the Challenger disaster. He claims the disaster could have been averted by asking a better question than "Are we really going to delay the launch again?" Instead, he says the question that should have been asked was "Regardless of the temperature at the launch site now, what temperature do you believe is the minimum safe operating range of the equipment?"
The anecdote was providing an example about the importance of understanding social pressure. Fine. But the problem is that this latter question is extremely logical and rational, while the problem quote he claims was uttered (notably, I can't find this confirmed anywhere) is unequivocally emotional, not rational. In this case, seemingly without knowing it, he's advocating for even more logic so as not to fall victim to emotions wrought by social pressure.
Look, I'm not saying the big idea here is bankrupt. It's true that sometimes we get caught up in overly logical thinking and forget that humans are very silly, dumb, and emotional animals and often do what they do for silly, dumb, and emotional reasons. This is important to keep in mind especially, I would say, in marketing. But that single big idea is really all this book has to offer.
It takes a lot for me to give up on a book, or to skip ahead if I'm reading nonfiction. I didn't with Alchemy, but I really wish I had. I hope I can save someone the trouble of making the same mistake. You won't miss much.
Congratulations! You've now acquired all the information that this book has to offer. Pat yourself on the back and save yourself a lot of time.
Oh - you mean this wasn't news to you?
Alchemy, or "Think Outside the Box Sometimes: The Book," chooses as its thesis the shocking and revelatory idea that sometimes, you need to think creatively to solve difficult problems (and to market better, but the book covers both marketing and big ideas in the rest of the world).
The problem, to put it bluntly, is that this isn't really something that people didn't know already, and it's certainly not something that takes nearly 400 pages to explain. It's a quote you hang on the wall: "Think Differently."
Now, some of the examples are cool. But they get tedious very quickly. Unfortunately, the book is just far too many chapters that take as a jumping-off point some permutation of "think differently" and then provide several examples of times when that worked.
This leads me to another problem: This book is plagued by selection bias. There are many times where rational ideas are in fact the best ones. There are plenty of times where logical thinking trumps emotional thinking. And there are also times where I questioned his evaluation of what constitutes an overreliance on logic and what constitutes, ahem, Alchemy.
For example, in one of the most baffling (and uh, borderline tasteless) anecdotes right near the end of the book, he discusses the Challenger disaster. He claims the disaster could have been averted by asking a better question than "Are we really going to delay the launch again?" Instead, he says the question that should have been asked was "Regardless of the temperature at the launch site now, what temperature do you believe is the minimum safe operating range of the equipment?"
The anecdote was providing an example about the importance of understanding social pressure. Fine. But the problem is that this latter question is extremely logical and rational, while the problem quote he claims was uttered (notably, I can't find this confirmed anywhere) is unequivocally emotional, not rational. In this case, seemingly without knowing it, he's advocating for even more logic so as not to fall victim to emotions wrought by social pressure.
Look, I'm not saying the big idea here is bankrupt. It's true that sometimes we get caught up in overly logical thinking and forget that humans are very silly, dumb, and emotional animals and often do what they do for silly, dumb, and emotional reasons. This is important to keep in mind especially, I would say, in marketing. But that single big idea is really all this book has to offer.
It takes a lot for me to give up on a book, or to skip ahead if I'm reading nonfiction. I didn't with Alchemy, but I really wish I had. I hope I can save someone the trouble of making the same mistake. You won't miss much.
July 4, 2019
A really thought-provoking book that makes a powerful case for why we should realise that the emotional and psychological aspects of why we do the things we do should be treated with as much seriousness as the logical aspects.
Some reviewers have jumped to unwarranted conclusions about Sutherland's case. I've seen it said that he rejects logic and science, that he's anti-truth or post-truth. So I thought I'd finish with a quote from the book itself, to make things perfectly clear:
"I’m not asking people to completely overhaul all decision-making, to ignore data or to reject facts. But, whether in the bar or the boardroom, I would like just 20 per cent of conversational time to be reserved for the consideration of alternative explanations, acknowledging the possibility that the real ‘why’ differs from the official ‘why’, and that our evolved rationality is very different from the economic idea of rationality. "
Some reviewers have jumped to unwarranted conclusions about Sutherland's case. I've seen it said that he rejects logic and science, that he's anti-truth or post-truth. So I thought I'd finish with a quote from the book itself, to make things perfectly clear:
"I’m not asking people to completely overhaul all decision-making, to ignore data or to reject facts. But, whether in the bar or the boardroom, I would like just 20 per cent of conversational time to be reserved for the consideration of alternative explanations, acknowledging the possibility that the real ‘why’ differs from the official ‘why’, and that our evolved rationality is very different from the economic idea of rationality. "
September 18, 2019
The beginning of this book, probably the first third, 5 stars! Super thought provoking and interesting. Will probably reread the beginning again at some point! The other two thirds, kind of redundant, and a little dull. The very end was mostly just politics, which I didn’t find that helpful. As with a lot of business/self help books. I think it was too long.
November 23, 2020
This was quite fun to read and helped tie together more of the concepts I’ve been mulling over from Cialdini’s Influence and The Undoing Project (a bio of Tversky and Kahneman).
June 25, 2020
Mind blowing
March 24, 2020
By the means of unconventional logic and for some irrational reasons, I give this book five stars. Lol
January 8, 2020
An average book that could’ve been so much more had Sutherland been more patient and his editor willing to work with it. It suffers horribly from the “Nassim Taleb syndrome” of repeating the same sentence over and over hoping no one will say anything. Well I’ll say something. It’s okay if the total amount of material you got amounts to like 50 printed pages. You don’t need to play with giant empty white spaces and repetitions to get it to 300.
In short the book starts off well and I honestly believed I’m in for a five star one, a rarity nowadays. Then it goes to the notion of signalling where for some reason Sutherland had nothing to say so he just said the same thing, but for 50 pages. Naturally the quality dips severely from there on. The few ideas in this brick of a book if we consider page to unique content ratio, really come off as a ball of spaghetti which the author keeps throwing at the wall. Like really throwing over and over and over in some mad routine in hope for something to stick, but the spaghetti is like 3 kilos pasta and half a meatball with no parmesan or tomato sauce so nothing really can stick.
Overall a sad time waste.
In short the book starts off well and I honestly believed I’m in for a five star one, a rarity nowadays. Then it goes to the notion of signalling where for some reason Sutherland had nothing to say so he just said the same thing, but for 50 pages. Naturally the quality dips severely from there on. The few ideas in this brick of a book if we consider page to unique content ratio, really come off as a ball of spaghetti which the author keeps throwing at the wall. Like really throwing over and over and over in some mad routine in hope for something to stick, but the spaghetti is like 3 kilos pasta and half a meatball with no parmesan or tomato sauce so nothing really can stick.
Overall a sad time waste.
August 20, 2019
If you need to improve public transport service, the rational option is to invest in new roads, tracks, vehicles, stations -and this will set you back tens/hundreds of millions. The alternative is to invest a couple of hundred grand into better displays that tell you exactly when the next train/bus is due. Less anxiety > increased perception of quality for a fraction of cost.
Rory Sutherland calls this lateral problem solving "alchemy", and the book is full of related anecdotes and examples. And Rory is not just some branding guru telling you to be "creative" but a direct response guy who has decades of results and case studies to back his claim up.
What this book doesn't have is a linear flow or process to follow, but then again it'd be strange if there unquestionable logic or a precise recipe for alchemy.
6 stars for the main idea and style of storytelling (I listened to an audiobook), 4 stars for the writing and editing (I personally would have cut 10% or so of the book), a solid 5* all in all.
Rory Sutherland calls this lateral problem solving "alchemy", and the book is full of related anecdotes and examples. And Rory is not just some branding guru telling you to be "creative" but a direct response guy who has decades of results and case studies to back his claim up.
What this book doesn't have is a linear flow or process to follow, but then again it'd be strange if there unquestionable logic or a precise recipe for alchemy.
6 stars for the main idea and style of storytelling (I listened to an audiobook), 4 stars for the writing and editing (I personally would have cut 10% or so of the book), a solid 5* all in all.
December 7, 2019
Tough to appreciate for us math types
It would be tremendously difficult to appreciate this book if you, like me, are from a background in mathematics and/ot data science. Many conclusions, theories and thought experiments in this book will appear outright ridiculous, impossible or even outrageous. But there are golden Nuggets of knowledge where you won't only agree with what the author is saying but also would feel you've experienced the same phenomena. Author tries clubbing several human behaviors under this umbrella term call "alchemy", which seems like a stretch at times. My recommendation is even if first ten percent of book seems little less palatable do read it till the end because at times it's fun to read an opposing point of view. If nothing else I found the book entertaining and small chapters enabled quick reading.
P.S. I read this book because I had watched Rory Sutherland's Ted Talk, some time back, which was fairly impressive. You may want to look him up on YouTube.
It would be tremendously difficult to appreciate this book if you, like me, are from a background in mathematics and/ot data science. Many conclusions, theories and thought experiments in this book will appear outright ridiculous, impossible or even outrageous. But there are golden Nuggets of knowledge where you won't only agree with what the author is saying but also would feel you've experienced the same phenomena. Author tries clubbing several human behaviors under this umbrella term call "alchemy", which seems like a stretch at times. My recommendation is even if first ten percent of book seems little less palatable do read it till the end because at times it's fun to read an opposing point of view. If nothing else I found the book entertaining and small chapters enabled quick reading.
P.S. I read this book because I had watched Rory Sutherland's Ted Talk, some time back, which was fairly impressive. You may want to look him up on YouTube.
October 20, 2020
Sutherland beautifully follows Schopenhauer's maxim to "use common words to say uncommon things, rather than the opposite". "Alchemy" is a profound meditation on human behavior dressed in historical anecdotes, jokes, and marketing stories. The tone is light and chapters are short, but the book is brimming with ideas that are counterintuitive and deep.
To me personally three themes particularly stood out. First, the Girardian nature of the book - Sutherland's thoughts on when to avoid what amounts to mimetic rivalry and when to harness it constitute a rare practical application of Girardian theory. Second, there is a fair amount of overlap between Taleb and Sutherland, but in comparison to the former, Sutherland's explanations and illustrations of concepts like scientism, ergodicity and bounded rationality are noticeably clearer, and certainly less petulant.
Finally, "Alchemy" did a surprising job of nudging me away from an analytic approach that I tend to default to, and boy, after reading the book I've realized how much I needed that nudge.
To me personally three themes particularly stood out. First, the Girardian nature of the book - Sutherland's thoughts on when to avoid what amounts to mimetic rivalry and when to harness it constitute a rare practical application of Girardian theory. Second, there is a fair amount of overlap between Taleb and Sutherland, but in comparison to the former, Sutherland's explanations and illustrations of concepts like scientism, ergodicity and bounded rationality are noticeably clearer, and certainly less petulant.
Finally, "Alchemy" did a surprising job of nudging me away from an analytic approach that I tend to default to, and boy, after reading the book I've realized how much I needed that nudge.
April 26, 2023
Excellent. Absolutely excellent. Not too many books have an insight--a major insight--on every page. This one does.
Sutherland has a great gift for explaining things by often hilarious analogy, and it makes the book a genuine pleasure to read (in the author's language, he "scents the soap"), while it shows readers the benefits of pursuing the seemingly illogical, the non-obvious, the counter-intuitive... or at the least, doing something that's never been tried before. "After all, if it worked and made sense, someone would have done it already."
Many things, actions and behaviors we consider irrational--or worse, things that experts, elites and behavioral economists tell us are irrational--actually aren't. Not by a long shot. Instead, they are examples of "second-order social intelligence applied to an uncertain world." A type of evolved rationality, and not irrational at all.
Sutherland has a great gift for explaining things by often hilarious analogy, and it makes the book a genuine pleasure to read (in the author's language, he "scents the soap"), while it shows readers the benefits of pursuing the seemingly illogical, the non-obvious, the counter-intuitive... or at the least, doing something that's never been tried before. "After all, if it worked and made sense, someone would have done it already."
Many things, actions and behaviors we consider irrational--or worse, things that experts, elites and behavioral economists tell us are irrational--actually aren't. Not by a long shot. Instead, they are examples of "second-order social intelligence applied to an uncertain world." A type of evolved rationality, and not irrational at all.
July 19, 2020
Entertaining and insightful. Rory Sutherland's Alchemy is a book that goes straight on to the pile of marketing tomes I keep on my desk for easy access and reference. This stack includes Seth Godin's This is Marketing, another great title, and which I was continuously reminded of as I read Alchemy - maybe they should be read together.
Sutherland is a practitioner, which makes his examples and stories so much more credible - this is no intellectual preaching at us from arm's length. And his plea to include at least a bit of alchemy with the logic and reasoning that we deploy on a daily basis rings true. It explains so much of how the world really works, and gives us marketers permission to spend more time on the things that we know make sense but can't find the apt representation on presentations for.
Or as he puts it, we should allow more space for 'instinct, imagination, and luck'.
Highly recommended. I will read it again.
Sutherland is a practitioner, which makes his examples and stories so much more credible - this is no intellectual preaching at us from arm's length. And his plea to include at least a bit of alchemy with the logic and reasoning that we deploy on a daily basis rings true. It explains so much of how the world really works, and gives us marketers permission to spend more time on the things that we know make sense but can't find the apt representation on presentations for.
Or as he puts it, we should allow more space for 'instinct, imagination, and luck'.
Highly recommended. I will read it again.
December 27, 2021
-Let’s start with where the author’s point of view comes from... this guy seems to be big fan of Nassim N Taleb and Daniel Kahneman. Well... this gives me an excuse to begin my review with a Quote from “Skin in the Game” by Nassim Taleb..
“Survival comes first, truth understanding and science later.”
-This line is true with evolution and life on this planet. We have come this far as a species with importance given in the order as per above quote. Evolution is not always rational and logical, at least not in first glance/short term.
-Author has described about warning coloration in animals so as to survive in wild.
-One might think many animals will adopt and change their color to surrounding so as to hide from predator. However, there are few insects/worms which have adopted to be very brightly and lively colored which makes them easily visible even from far distances. This should make them easy prey in the wild?? … maybe not. It’s a costly signalling but it works,
-“ I am not trying to hide, therefore there might be a good reason not to eat me.”
=Or “ I am such a badass/poisonous, I don’t need to hide in the bushes”
-Predator thinks if something is so brightly coloured, survived without concealment and need not camouflage must be having some strategy hence best avoided.
-Bottom-line: Opposite of a good idea can also be a good idea.
-Irrational people are much more powerful as their threats are more convincing. Eg. Donald Trump, Kim Jong Un. It’s probably an advice in disguise on personal front also i.e. If you are too much rational, people will learn to hack you, so maybe be spontaneous sometimes.
-Many of the medicines invented/discovered worked and were used without knowing “How/Why. Why should not be per-requisite all the time.
-Our behavior is sometimes unpredictable as evolution is way smarter than we are. We have evolved for uncertain surroundings than we are today. Some things can be valuable without being valuable all the time. E.g. human Appendix, which earlier thought to be vestigial organ after all has some function.
-We are better off not knowing about our decisions, we are sometimes deceived by ourselves so we can deceive others. As Pascal said, “ The heart has reasons of which reason knows nothing.”
-Market Research:
: People don’t think what they feel, they don’t say what they think and they don’t do what they say”
-Major markets have banned/rejected vaping/e-cigarettes although its better replacement. Its difficult to get a man understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. –
-“The way question is phrased is itself an information” – Nassim Taleb
-Its difficult to reply with “tap water” when you are being asked by waiter “Still or Sparking water?”
-Logic should be a tool and not rule.
-Online shopping is good to buy one thing for ten people but not ten things by one person.
-Comes Taleb again: Minority Rules. Weird consumers drive more innovation than regular ones.
-If you ask me to guess, food delivery might have been started for introvert/lazy guys who just wants to eat home at peace without people staring at them.
-In competitive markets its pays to have (& to cultivate) eccentric tastes. Stock market investors should let think sink in. We should test counterintuitive things as one else will.
-Heuristics are results of million years of evolution/survival, avoid rejecting them outright. Even mathematicians use intuition to guess the right problem, solution and then logic to prove it.
-Morita hated the record button and was not first introduced in first Walkman by Sony. This would have confused the consumer for whom this product is primary. It’s not always a good idea to make everything versatile/multi-functional.
-Exclusive clubs can never advertise in mass media.
-Flower is just a weed with an advertising budget. A flower can be worth stopping at, worth going out of your way or destination in itself.
-Trust grows at the speed of coconut tree and falls at the speed of coconut.
-Sexual selection is early stage funding for natures best experiments.?
-Branding is inherently essential to existence of great products.
-You are not thinking; you are merely being logical” – Neils Bohr.
“Survival comes first, truth understanding and science later.”
-This line is true with evolution and life on this planet. We have come this far as a species with importance given in the order as per above quote. Evolution is not always rational and logical, at least not in first glance/short term.
-Author has described about warning coloration in animals so as to survive in wild.
-One might think many animals will adopt and change their color to surrounding so as to hide from predator. However, there are few insects/worms which have adopted to be very brightly and lively colored which makes them easily visible even from far distances. This should make them easy prey in the wild?? … maybe not. It’s a costly signalling but it works,
-“ I am not trying to hide, therefore there might be a good reason not to eat me.”
=Or “ I am such a badass/poisonous, I don’t need to hide in the bushes”
-Predator thinks if something is so brightly coloured, survived without concealment and need not camouflage must be having some strategy hence best avoided.
-Bottom-line: Opposite of a good idea can also be a good idea.
-Irrational people are much more powerful as their threats are more convincing. Eg. Donald Trump, Kim Jong Un. It’s probably an advice in disguise on personal front also i.e. If you are too much rational, people will learn to hack you, so maybe be spontaneous sometimes.
-Many of the medicines invented/discovered worked and were used without knowing “How/Why. Why should not be per-requisite all the time.
-Our behavior is sometimes unpredictable as evolution is way smarter than we are. We have evolved for uncertain surroundings than we are today. Some things can be valuable without being valuable all the time. E.g. human Appendix, which earlier thought to be vestigial organ after all has some function.
-We are better off not knowing about our decisions, we are sometimes deceived by ourselves so we can deceive others. As Pascal said, “ The heart has reasons of which reason knows nothing.”
-Market Research:
: People don’t think what they feel, they don’t say what they think and they don’t do what they say”
-Major markets have banned/rejected vaping/e-cigarettes although its better replacement. Its difficult to get a man understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. –
-“The way question is phrased is itself an information” – Nassim Taleb
-Its difficult to reply with “tap water” when you are being asked by waiter “Still or Sparking water?”
-Logic should be a tool and not rule.
-Online shopping is good to buy one thing for ten people but not ten things by one person.
-Comes Taleb again: Minority Rules. Weird consumers drive more innovation than regular ones.
-If you ask me to guess, food delivery might have been started for introvert/lazy guys who just wants to eat home at peace without people staring at them.
-In competitive markets its pays to have (& to cultivate) eccentric tastes. Stock market investors should let think sink in. We should test counterintuitive things as one else will.
-Heuristics are results of million years of evolution/survival, avoid rejecting them outright. Even mathematicians use intuition to guess the right problem, solution and then logic to prove it.
-Morita hated the record button and was not first introduced in first Walkman by Sony. This would have confused the consumer for whom this product is primary. It’s not always a good idea to make everything versatile/multi-functional.
-Exclusive clubs can never advertise in mass media.
-Flower is just a weed with an advertising budget. A flower can be worth stopping at, worth going out of your way or destination in itself.
-Trust grows at the speed of coconut tree and falls at the speed of coconut.
-Sexual selection is early stage funding for natures best experiments.?
-Branding is inherently essential to existence of great products.
-You are not thinking; you are merely being logical” – Neils Bohr.
August 26, 2021
I had listened to a lot of podcasts by Rory Sutherland. This book was equivalents to listening all of them together. I absolutely love the psychological tricks that our mind plays on our actions and a great marketer's ability to exploit them is just astounding. Read this book if the field of marketing and human behavior makes you curious.
December 13, 2020
The best business book I’ve ever read. Made at least a hundred notes while reading, extremely thought-provoking.
October 23, 2022
Interesting premise, but the book is a bit pretentious
April 16, 2022
In short: Behaviourial Economics (you know things like 'bias', 'heuristic', 'Daniel Kahneman', etc) explained by an advertising guy. Fun to read with a lot of insights and a lot of examples that worked. If you like Jonah Berger and Dan Ariely, you'd probably like this too.
July 3, 2022
Great examples of "non-sensical" behaviors of customers that only seem to make sense in hindsight.
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