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  • Published: 7 May 2019
  • ISBN: 9780753551370
  • Imprint: Virgin Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 384

Alchemy

The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense




The hugely anticipated first book from the TED Talks star and advertising legend

Discover the secret power of irrational thinking to create magic in branding, business, and life, with the breakthrough book from the advertising legend.

AS SEEN ON THE DIARY OF A CEO PODCAST

‘Revelatory and entertaining’ Sunday Times

‘Sutherland uses his decades of experience to dissect human spending behavior in an insanely entertaining way…a must read’ Entrepreneur, Best Books of the Year

‘One of the leading minds in the world of branding’ NPR

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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?

The answer? Humans are, in a word, irrational.

In his groundbreaking book, TED Talk superstar and Ogilvy advertising icon Rory Sutherland reveals why abandoning logic and casting aside rationality is the best way to solve any problem.

Based on thirty years of field work, his unconventional and relentlessly curious approach has led him to discover that the most compelling secrets to human decision making can be found in surprising places:

  • What can honeybees teach us about creating a sustainable business?
  • How could budget airlines show us how to market a health-care system?
  • Why is it better to be vaguely right than precisely wrong?
  • What might football penalty kicks teach us about the dangers of risk aversion?

Better \"branding,\" Sutherland reveals, can also be employed not just to sell products but to promote a variety of social aims, like getting people to pay taxes, improving public health outcomes, or encouraging more women to pursue careers in tech.

In his mission to turn us all into idea alchemists, Sutherland blends cutting-edge behavioural science with jaw-dropping true stories to show that the problems we face, both as an individual or in society, could very well be solved by thinking less logically.

To be brilliant, you have to be irrational. This book shows you how.

  • Published: 7 May 2019
  • ISBN: 9780753551370
  • Imprint: Virgin Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 384

About the author

Rory Sutherland

Rory Sutherland is the Vice Chairman of Ogilvy UK and the founder of the behavioural science practice. He writes the Spectator’s ‘Wiki Man’ column, presents series for BBC Radio 4, serves on the advisory board of The Evolution Institute, and is former President of the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising). The IDM (Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing) awarded Sutherland an Honorary Life Fellowship. His TED talks have over 6.5 million views. He authored a collection of blog posts, interviews, tweets and reference materials, The Wiki-Man, in 2011, and his first book Alchemy was published in 2019.

Praise for Alchemy

Wonderfully applicable to everything in life, and funny as hell

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, bestselling author of Antifragile and Black Swan

Veins of wisdom regarding human functioning emerge regularly and brilliantly from the pages. Don't miss this book.

Robert Cialdini, bestselling author of Influence, Yes!, The Small BIG and Pre-suasion

Brings together complex theory with stories and plentiful humour to both captivate and entertain. It’s an important work for our era of apparent irrationality.

The Spectator

[A] fun, quirky, hilarious page-turner…Sutherland is one of the all-time great raconteurs, polymaths, and ad men

Geoffrey Miller, evolutionary psychologist, author of The Mating Mind, Spent, and What Women Want

Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant … wonderfully heretical, naughty and funny … Uncommon sense on stilts

Jules Goddard, Fellow of the Centre for Management Development at London Business School and co-author of Uncommon Sense, Common Nonsense

Buy this book for the footnotes alone… As a committed devotee of rationalism, who thinks there is not enough of it in this world, I rationally ought to hate this book. Instead I loved it.

Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist

A must read for anyone who is in the people business

Dilip Soman, Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Science and Economics, University of Toronto

Both a book on human behavior and a rallying cry to stand up against the spreadsheet mafia dominating most government and corporate policies today

Forbes, "Best Books on Consumer Behavior to Help You in Business and in Life"

Stimulating and funny

The Times