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65 reviews for:
Alchemy : The Magic of Original Thinking in a World of Mind-Numbing Conformity
Rory Sutherland
4.0 AVERAGE
65 reviews for:
Alchemy : The Magic of Original Thinking in a World of Mind-Numbing Conformity
Rory Sutherland
4.0 AVERAGE
funny
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
fast-paced
My take-aways in 68 tweets: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1151531720103145478.html
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
The premise of this book by an ad man is that sometimes you have to use non-obvious or seemingly irrational ways to sell things to people because we don't all behave with strict rationality. ('Ideas' in the title refers almost exclusively to making and selling products, and occasionally to selling behaviour changes.) This is potentially very interesting and does have some very good insights about framing choices and changing minds, if you sift through the chaff.
Unfortunately there is a lot of chaff, and most of it is shed by the massive Worzel Gummidge army of strawmen the author assembles to support his arguments.
For example, the author explains that US companies give terrible holiday to workers because it's considered to dent productivity. He says: "There is an abundance of supporting evidence" for the fact that giving workers generous holiday doesn't hinder and probably helps productivity, but nevertheless "in the left-brain logical model of the world, productivity is proportional to hours worked, and a doubling of holiday time must lead to a corresponding 4% fall in salary."
This is absolute garbage. It is not a "logical" response to ignore something for which there is abundant evidence: it's very stupid. The author again and again sets up a 'logical' position that is nothing of the sort to prove his thesis that it's clever to appeal to people's irrational instincts and gut feelings. But he never stops to note that eg "I will get more work out of people if I never give them time off" is just as much a gut-feeling irrational instinct as "I will buy this if the packet is long and thin".
It's full of this sort of spurious crap. He claims that the idea of increasing sales by putting prices up is "to an economist, entirely illogical", which...I mean, the shelves are literally full of economist books about this stuff. He says that an economist would answer the question "Why do people go to restaurants?" with "Because they are hungry" and would not think about any other reasons, just as an economist would design a chair only to support weight and not to be comfortable, because economists apparently don't want either to sell chairs or to sit in them. He says that miso soup is popular only because "we" (Westerners) see Japanese people drinking it and assume it must be good--not because anyone likes it. There is no explanation of how come Japanese people like it (Japanese people aren't 'we'), or acknowledgement that maybe he just personally doesn't like miso soup: no, miso soup is a scam and you, a Western person, have bought into the scam because you've been suckered.
Basically it's full of statements that don't stand up to critical thought. He notes sarcastically that women spend two trillion dollars a year on makeup and are "let off rather lightly for this level of extravagance. If men spent two trillion dollars a year on something totally irrational--building model train sets, say--they would be excoriated for it." I'm not even going to bother unpicking the layers of sexism, privilege-blindness, nonsense, and outright untruth in this ridiculous paragraph, but it's fascinating that this jerk has spent his entire career as well as this entire book finding ways to sell stuff that isn't a rational necessity to people, then condemns women for buying it.
AND WHILE I AM HERE: there's a chapter on the placebo effect which says perfectly sensible things about exploiting the effect for everyone's benefit (eg why not colour aspirin red, because it feels more dramatic to take red pills) and then suggests that for the same reason we should encourage the use of homeopathy. That just sums this book up--Mr. Too Clever For Logic apparently can't see any difference between better marketing of an effective product and selling something as medicine when we know for a fact it doesn't work. There is a point where marketing becomes active dishonesty and this careers over it.
*And* it's shoddy, with a bunch of text errors. "There are five main reasons" for X behaviour he says, and lists four. He says a website does X clever thing in 'a single sentence' and then gives the quote, which is several sentences. It appears Penguin didn't bother to have this edited, and I can't really blame them as the temptation would be to put a red pen through so much of it.
There are some genuinely good ideas in here which serve as useful tips on working out exactly how a company is trying to sell you stuff, but I can't recommend ploughing through the waffle, nonsense, strawmen, and self-satisfaction to reach them. Bah.
Unfortunately there is a lot of chaff, and most of it is shed by the massive Worzel Gummidge army of strawmen the author assembles to support his arguments.
For example, the author explains that US companies give terrible holiday to workers because it's considered to dent productivity. He says: "There is an abundance of supporting evidence" for the fact that giving workers generous holiday doesn't hinder and probably helps productivity, but nevertheless "in the left-brain logical model of the world, productivity is proportional to hours worked, and a doubling of holiday time must lead to a corresponding 4% fall in salary."
This is absolute garbage. It is not a "logical" response to ignore something for which there is abundant evidence: it's very stupid. The author again and again sets up a 'logical' position that is nothing of the sort to prove his thesis that it's clever to appeal to people's irrational instincts and gut feelings. But he never stops to note that eg "I will get more work out of people if I never give them time off" is just as much a gut-feeling irrational instinct as "I will buy this if the packet is long and thin".
It's full of this sort of spurious crap. He claims that the idea of increasing sales by putting prices up is "to an economist, entirely illogical", which...I mean, the shelves are literally full of economist books about this stuff. He says that an economist would answer the question "Why do people go to restaurants?" with "Because they are hungry" and would not think about any other reasons, just as an economist would design a chair only to support weight and not to be comfortable, because economists apparently don't want either to sell chairs or to sit in them. He says that miso soup is popular only because "we" (Westerners) see Japanese people drinking it and assume it must be good--not because anyone likes it. There is no explanation of how come Japanese people like it (Japanese people aren't 'we'), or acknowledgement that maybe he just personally doesn't like miso soup: no, miso soup is a scam and you, a Western person, have bought into the scam because you've been suckered.
Basically it's full of statements that don't stand up to critical thought. He notes sarcastically that women spend two trillion dollars a year on makeup and are "let off rather lightly for this level of extravagance. If men spent two trillion dollars a year on something totally irrational--building model train sets, say--they would be excoriated for it." I'm not even going to bother unpicking the layers of sexism, privilege-blindness, nonsense, and outright untruth in this ridiculous paragraph, but it's fascinating that this jerk has spent his entire career as well as this entire book finding ways to sell stuff that isn't a rational necessity to people, then condemns women for buying it.
AND WHILE I AM HERE: there's a chapter on the placebo effect which says perfectly sensible things about exploiting the effect for everyone's benefit (eg why not colour aspirin red, because it feels more dramatic to take red pills) and then suggests that for the same reason we should encourage the use of homeopathy. That just sums this book up--Mr. Too Clever For Logic apparently can't see any difference between better marketing of an effective product and selling something as medicine when we know for a fact it doesn't work. There is a point where marketing becomes active dishonesty and this careers over it.
*And* it's shoddy, with a bunch of text errors. "There are five main reasons" for X behaviour he says, and lists four. He says a website does X clever thing in 'a single sentence' and then gives the quote, which is several sentences. It appears Penguin didn't bother to have this edited, and I can't really blame them as the temptation would be to put a red pen through so much of it.
There are some genuinely good ideas in here which serve as useful tips on working out exactly how a company is trying to sell you stuff, but I can't recommend ploughing through the waffle, nonsense, strawmen, and self-satisfaction to reach them. Bah.
informative
medium-paced
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
It's an engaging read that makes interesting points about both the value and the cost of common sense.