What Rory Sutherland thinks about innovation

@rory-sutherland · 16 positions · On ppll ↗

Rory Sutherland is vice chairman of Ogilvy UK, where he helped found the agency's behavioural science practice. He wrote Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business and Life, and writes a column for The Spectator.

Rory Sutherland did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

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1 dated position, 2025, in their own words. Our reading of what Rory Sutherland has said — not written or endorsed by them.

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1. 9 Dec 2025

   Our readingMarketing returns are fat-tailed, so paying for marketing by the hour misprices work whose value comes from a small fraction of it.

   Their wordsthe reason it's a catastrophic way to be paid my argument is that marketing is actually fat tailed so is innovation R&D pharmaceutical research science okay in other words 5 to 10% of what you do delivers perhaps 110% of the value

   ↗Marketing Expert: The Playbook Behind Every Great Campaign | Rory Sutherlandyoutube.com 12th of 16 in this recording