Speakers Rory Sutherland: Advertising guru

Rory Sutherland stands at the center of an advertising revolution in brand identities, designing cutting-edge, interactive campaigns that blur the line between ad and entertainment.

Why you should listen to him:

From unlikely beginnings as a classics teacher to his current job as Vice Chairman of Ogilvy Group, Rory Sutherland has created his own brand of the Cinderella story. He joined Ogilvy & Mather's planning department in 1988, and became a junior copywriter, working on Microsoft's account in its pre-Windows days. An early fan of the Internet, he was among the first in the traditional ad world to see the potential in these relatively unknown technologies.

An immediate understanding of the possibilities of digital technology and the Internet powered Sutherland's meteoric rise. He continues to provide insight into advertising in the age of the Internet and social media through his blog at Campaign's Brand Republic site, his column "The Wiki Man" at The Spectator and his busy Twitter account.

"Rory is the original advocate of '360-degree branding,' a persuasive and charismatic speaker and has a tremendous knack for making ideas come to life in an easily digestible way. He has been walking the walk longer than anyone."

Gary Leih, Ogilvy Group Chairman

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Quotes by Rory Sutherland

“Engineers, medical people, scientific people, have an obsession with solving the problems of reality, when actually … once you reach a basic level of wealth in society, most problems are actually problems of perception.”
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“When you place a value on things like health, love, sex and other things, and learn to place a material value on what you’ve previously discounted for being merely intangible … you realize you’re much, much wealthier than you ever imagined.”
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“Once you have a very, very large budget, you actually look for expensive things to spend it on.”
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“Waiting seven minutes for a train with a countdown clock is less frustrating and irritating than waiting four minutes, knuckle-biting, going ‘When's this train going to arrive?’”
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“The circumstances of our lives actually matter less to our happiness than the sense of control we feel over our lives.”
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“Google understood that if you're just a search engine, people assume you're a very, very good search engine.”
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“Reality isn't a particularly good guide to human happiness.”
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“When you can't smoke, if you stand and stare out of the window on your own, you're an antisocial, friendless idiot. If you stand and stare out of the window on your own with a cigarette, you're a philosopher.”
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