Dan Cobley: What physics taught me about marketing

188,373 views ・ 2010-08-27

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:16
So I work in marketing, which I love,
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but my first passion was physics,
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a passion brought to me by a wonderful school teacher,
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when I had a little less gray hair.
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So he taught me
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that physics is cool
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because it teaches us so much about the world around us.
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And I'm going to spend the next few minutes trying to convince you
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that physics can teach us something about marketing.
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So quick show of hands --
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who studied some marketing in university?
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Who studied some physics in university?
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Pretty good. And at school?
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Okay, lots of you.
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So, hopefully this will bring back some happy,
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or possibly some slightly disturbing memories.
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So, physics and marketing.
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We'll start with something very simple -- Newton's Law:
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"The force equals mass times acceleration."
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This is something that perhaps Turkish Airlines
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should have studied a bit more carefully
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before they ran this campaign.
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(Laughter)
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01:13
But if we rearrange this formula quickly,
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we can get to acceleration equals force over mass,
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which means
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that for a larger particle -- a larger mass --
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it requires more force to change its direction.
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It's the same with brands:
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the more massive a brand, the more baggage it has,
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the more force is needed to change its positioning.
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And that's one of the reasons why
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Arthur Andersen chose to launch Accenture
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rather than try to persuade the world
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that Andersen's could stand for something
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other than accountancy.
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It explains why Hoover
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found it very difficult to persuade the world
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that it was more than vacuum cleaners,
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and why companies like Unilever and P&G
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keep brands separate,
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like Ariel and Pringles and Dove
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rather than having one giant parent brand.
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So the physics is that the bigger the mass of an object
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the more force is needed
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to change its direction.
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The marketing is, the bigger a brand,
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the more difficult it is to reposition it.
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So think about a portfolio of brands
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or maybe new brands for new ventures.
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Now, who remembers Heisenberg's uncertainty principle?
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Getting a little more technical now.
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So this says that
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it's impossible, by definition,
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to measure exactly the state -- i.e., the position --
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and the momentum of a particle,
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because the act of measuring it, by definition, changes it.
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So to explain that -- if you've got an elementary particle
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and you shine a light on it,
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then the photon of light has momentum,
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which knocks the particle,
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so you don't know where it was before you looked at it.
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By measuring it,
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the act of measurement changes it.
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The act of observation changes it.
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It's the same in marketing.
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So with the act of observing consumers, changes their behavior.
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Think about the group of moms
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who are talking about their wonderful children in a focus group,
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and almost none of them buy lots of junk food.
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And yet, McDonald's sells hundreds of millions of burgers every year.
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Think about the people who are on accompanied shops in supermarkets,
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who stuff their trolleys
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full of fresh green vegetables and fruit,
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but don't shop like that any other day.
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And if you think about the number of people
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who claim in surveys
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to regularly look for porn on the Web,
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it's very few.
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Yet, at Google, we know it's the number-one searched for category.
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So luckily, the science --
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no, sorry -- the marketing is getting easier.
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Luckily, with now better point-of-sale tracking,
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more digital media consumption,
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you can measure more what consumers actually do,
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rather than what they say they do.
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So the physics is
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you can never accurately and exactly
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measure a particle,
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because the observation changes it.
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The marketing is -- the message for marketing is --
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that try to measure what consumers actually do,
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rather than what they say they'll do
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or anticipate they'll do.
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So next, the scientific method --
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an axiom of physics, of all science --
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says you cannot prove a hypothesis through observation,
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you can only disprove it.
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What this means is you can gather more and more data
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around a hypothesis or a positioning,
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and it will strengthen it, but it will not conclusively prove it.
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And only one contrary data point
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can blow your theory out of the water.
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So if we take an example --
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Ptolemy had dozens of data points to support his theory
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that the planets would rotate around the Earth.
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It only took one robust observation from Copernicus
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to blow that idea out of the water.
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And there are parallels for marketing --
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you can invest for a long time in a brand,
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but a single contrary observation of that positioning
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will destroy consumers' belief.
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Take BP --
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they spent millions of pounds over many years
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building up its credentials as an environmentally friendly brand,
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but then one little accident.
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Think about Toyota.
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It was, for a long time, revered
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as the most reliable of cars,
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and then they had the big recall incident.
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And Tiger Woods, for a long time,
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the perfect brand ambassador.
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Well, you know the story.
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05:20
(Laughter)
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So the physics is
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that you cannot prove a hypothesis,
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but it's easy to disprove it --
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any hypothesis is shaky.
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And the marketing is
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that not matter how much you've invested in your brand,
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one bad week can undermine decades of good work.
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So be really careful to try and avoid the screw-ups
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that can undermine your brand.
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And lastly, to the slightly obscure world of entropy --
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the second law of thermodynamics.
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This says that entropy,
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which is a measure of the disorder of a system,
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will always increase.
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The same is true of marketing.
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06:00
If we go back 20 years,
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the one message pretty much controlled by one marketing manager
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could pretty much define a brand.
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But where we are today, things have changed.
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You can get a strong brand image
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or a message
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and put it out there like the Conservative Party did
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earlier this year with their election poster.
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But then you lose control of it.
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With the kind of digital comment creation and distribution tools
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that are available now to every consumer,
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it's impossible to control where it goes.
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Your brand starts being dispersed,
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(Laughter)
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it gets more chaotic.
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(Laughter)
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It's out of your control.
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(Laughter)
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I actually saw him speak -- he did a good job.
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But while this may be unsettling for marketers,
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it's actually a good thing.
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This distribution of brand energy
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gets your brand closer to the people,
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more in with the people.
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It makes this distribution of energy a democratizing force,
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which is ultimately good for your brand.
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So, the lesson from physics is
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that entropy will always increase; it's a fundamental law.
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The message for marketing is that your brand is more dispersed.
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You can't fight it, so embrace it
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and find a way to work with it.
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So to close,
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my teacher, Mr. Vutter, told me
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that physics is cool,
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and hopefully, I've convinced you
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that physics can teach all of us, even in the world of marketing, something special.
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Thank you.
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07:31
(Applause)
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