For as long as humans have been around,
we’ve been trying to make sense of everything that surrounds us.
So far, we’ve done okay - medicine, technology, infrastructure -
these are all products of knowledge gained as a direct result of this curiosity.
And all this mathematical and scientific understanding
is based on one fundamental principle - logical thought.
That’s not a revelation, we all know the value of logic.
The problem is that it’s served us so well in so many different areas
that we have a tendency to try and use it as a guiding principle
for almost everything.
But there’s one major element of our world
which simply doesn’t adhere to logic:
Us.
Humans are inconsistent.
We’re incredibly subject to our context and our emotions.
Even though we love to tell ourselves we are logical, we aren't.
Try and imagine someone whose thoughts and actions are guided solely by logic.
They would be an oddity, constantly mystified by
the irrational actions of those around them.
Basically they’d be Spock
and capable of logic though we are,
Vulcan, we are not.
This on its own is ok.
But it is something we need to acknowledge.
Too often in advertising, economics, and a whole host of other contexts
we assume that people will act in a purely logical way,
when this is far from true.
This concept forms the central theme of Rory Sutherland’s book
“Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don’t Make Sense”,
which draws on his experiences in the advertising industry
to examine occasions in which
counterintuitive ideas that ignore conventional logic have won the day.
Imagine if told you that I was creating a drink to compete with Coca Cola
but that I was going to sell it in smaller containers, for more money.
Oh, and according to all focus group data, it objectively tastes disgusting.
Want to invest?
[NO!]
I didn’t think so.
Logically, selling a drink matching this description at all
sounds like it’s doomed to fail before it’s even started,
let alone doing so on a scale to compete with Coca Cola.
But when this happened for real, rather than being its downfall,
all these characteristics ended up being central to its success.
The name of the drink...
was Red Bull.
By marketing it as an energy drink, the small can size and inflated cost
gave people the impression that what they were getting was a
“controlled dose” of a potent, “super-drink”
which was probably... dangerous to sell in larger quantities.
Likewise, the unpleasant taste just heightened the impression
that it packed a punch.
This is a great example of the gap between the logical and the psychological,
and it’s precisely why when it comes to advertising
– and so much more – logic is only of limited use.
People aren’t driven by logic, they’re driven by human nature
which draws conclusions based on incomplete data, emotion,
evolutionary self preservation and any number of other factors,
most of which have little, or nothing at all, to do with logic.
So once we recognise this, how do we act on it?
How do we figure out when to use logic as our guide,
and when to discard it?
Some of that comes down to reasoning from first principles,
the idea that you should ask “why?” at every step of your process
to remove all assumptions that you have.
But that’s only part of the battle, because sometimes when you ask “Why?”
you’re going to get an answer which seems counterintuitive - ridiculous, even.
However, that absurd idea might just be the key to a new way of thinking
which could change your world.
Sure, it seems unlikely, but statistically, with a broader scope
there’s a much higher chance you’ll come across
an idea which could be a differentiator for your business.
So it’s essential, that when that happens you don’t dismiss it out of hand.
Now, no one’s saying you should jump down the rabbithole head-first -
basing your entire strategy around some left-field idea
without appropriate research is ill-advised at best.
But creating a safe space to test these unlikely ideas,
to hear them out and give them a chance to succeed or fail
without fear of consequence, gives innovation its best chance to flourish.
We love to tell stories about renegade geniuses everyone thought were crazy,
who followed their dreams and proved their naysayers wrong.
But often, these individuals were simply entrepreneurs
who weren’t confined to doing those things that make sense to a committee,
or fit nicely into a spreadsheet.
And that kind of freedom is what companies need to learn to nurture.
Because embracing the possibilities of counterintuitive ideas,
free from the fear of failure,
is what will ultimately enable exploration of the vast space of possibilities
your logic-constrained competitors will never venture into.