Rory Sutherland's Thought For The Day: Choosing Efficiency Over Effectiveness Is A Big Mistake
3 November 2023
Last week, I sent out a fairly provocative tweet (or whatever the verb is these days) saying: “You can largely explain the decline of advertising in a sentence. Media agencies know how to make money from media in the absence of creative; creative agencies don't know how to make money from creativity in the absence of media.”
Put another way, given the focus on efficiency rather than effectiveness, we have overinvested in media automation (algorithms) and undervalued creativity. By favouring small incremental gains from automation, we’ve lost out on landmark creative discoveries.
This isn’t a state of affairs that’s limited to ad agencies. Choosing efficiency over effectiveness is a mistake made by brands, marketers, media owners and b2b firms too.
If we are to really address the fundamental challenges of marketing, advertising and wider business, we need to create headspace to identify structural challenges, experiment with creative and behavioural science-led thinking. Only then can we step off the hamster wheel and think big about our priorities and most dial-shifting solutions.
So, what can we do about it? Well, I’ve created a 12 week programme to allow yourself the space needed to stop tinkering at the edges + boldly develop as a marketing, commercial or business leader. Featuring CPD-accredited on-demand lectures, live seminars, an assessment and in–person meet-up/masterclass, you’ll learn how to use creativity and behavioural science to solve problems and unleash their alchemic powers!
The next course kicks off in just 3 weeks (20 Nov) and capacity is extremely limited (we cap numbers to ensure to make the live seminars a more enjoyable learning experience). REGISTER HERE today + give yourself the space to rethink what’s really going on in your world!
Want your colleagues to do the course too? Good news - there’s preferential rates on bookings of 5+ places + a complimentary invite to an in-person MAD//Masters primer event I’m speaking at in February - contact Sam Benton for more details.
