I had marked this video intending to post it during Inside the Arts “Mad Men Week,” but totally forgot about it until coming across it today. The video is Rory Sutherland talking about how ad men create perceived value for objects. The has a great sense of humor so the video is just plain fun to watch.
My favorite bit comes toward the end when he talks about Post cereal’s roll out of Diamond Shreddies which literally turned the old Shreddies cereal on end. Inexplicably, the move was a little controversial and Post issued a “combo pack” of both cereals. (I gotta hope the controversy was manufactured by Post.)
The thing that might be most valuable for arts people is a quote at the end of his talk where he cites a quote “Poetry is when you make new things familiar and familiar things new.” Though in the case of the arts and current attendance trends, the familiar may be an entirely new experience.
He says it isn’t a bad definition of what advertising people’s job is: “To help people appreciate what is unfamiliar. But also to gain a greater appreciation and place a far higher value on those things that are already existing.”
Okay no surprise there. Apropos to my previous comment, arts people try to make their disciplines familiar to those who haven’t had much interaction with it every day.