Inspirational speakers can really motivate people to think differently and make smarter choices. When it comes to the marketing world, one good innovative idea can mean the difference between branding success and downfall. TED talks serve as an idea platform for viewers across the world by delivering interesting discoveries and starting conversation about topics people may forget about.
Compiled below are BIGEYE’s Top 8 TED talks on marketing; these articles hold unique perspectives on how to attain true success in our ever-changing industry. From consumer preference and perception to branding, these talks are thought provoking and even humorous.
1. Malcolm Gladwell: Choice, Happiness, and Spaghetti Sauce
This talk discusses the importance of striving for preference rather than perfection. There is no perfect solution to make every single one of your consumers happy. Your product or service must be adaptive to diverse opinions and tastes. Gladwell uses a brand of spaghetti sauce to prove that offering specific choices creates your own niche market, which in turn, increases sales.
2. Rory Sutherland: Life Lessons from an Ad Man
Value is a matter of perception and persuasion, which is better than compulsion. At least that’s what this TED talk is centered around. Rory Sutherland discusses why it is important to use perception to your advantage. To be successful, businesses must understand it is seen through a consumer’s eye. The examples featured throughout this talk prove that simple manipulation of perception can create the best solutions to marketing problems.
3. Joseph Pine: What Consumers Want
Customers like to think that what they buy is authentic and real. However, Joseph Pine makes it clear that selling authenticity is tough because there is no such thing. But, there is such thing as creating “artificial” experiences and still make millions. Consumers want to buy experience more than anything, and this talk emphasizes the importance of staying true to who the business is in order to provide the most authentic experience possible.
4. Morgan Spurlock: The Greatest TED Talk Ever Sold
This talk is particularly interesting because Morgan Spurlock documents his journey and presents it in clips. He shares his quest to make a completely sponsored film about sponsorship, and takes you into the offices of different businesses. Not only is this talk funny, but it also educational as it explores the way many business go about brand marketing.
5. Sheena Iyengar: How To Make Choosing Easier
It’s easier for consumers to feel overwhelmed by choices. Even walking into a convenience store to buy toothpaste can be a headache. With 50 different options staring you down, it can be difficult to make a fast decision. In this talk, Sheena Iyengar reveals a solution to this problem by giving businesses ways to improve the experience of choosing.
6. Dan Cobley: What Physics Taught Me About Marketing
Using Newton’s second law, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, the scientific method and the second law of thermodynamics, this marketing director from Google explains how marketing and physics have more in common than you may imagine.
7. Josh Luber: Why Sneakers Are A Great Investment
The secondary market for sneakers in the United States represents a 1.2 billion dollar industry. In this talk, Josh, who is one part sneakerhead and one part data geek, explains how Nike’s customers made almost twice as much profit as their closest competitor last year.
8. Mary Norris: The Nit-Picking Glory of The New Yorker’s Comma Queen
Meet Mary Norris, a charmingly precise, well-spoken copy editor from the New Yorker. Copywriters and wordsmiths of all sorts will swoon at her detail orientation toward word selection. About Mary, a reader recently wrote, “Please, could you expel, or, at least restrain, the comma maniac, on your editorial staff?”.
Interested in learning more from a team of industry experts? Contact us today!
