Life Lessons From an Ad Man - Rory Sutherland by Kayla Nadzam

The TED talk titled "Life Lessons From an Ad Man" by Rory Sutherland discusses the Advertising field. Sutherland primarily explains the power that Advertising has on consumerism and which advertising techniques work best and which ones work worst when promoting a product. The most important point that he addresses is that perception is essential in the world of advertising. A consumer is either more or less inclined to purchase a product based on the way he or she perceives it to be according to how it is advertised to him or her. Sutherland uses real-life examples of both successful and failed advertisements in order to explain which methods work and which methods do not work. I was interested in watching this TED talk because I aspire to work in the Public Relations field, which is similar to Advertising. However, in Public Relations one promotes an individual rather than a product. This video was very helpful to me because promotion techniques for products are the same as for people, so I was able to learn what would make me either succeed or fail in the career field that I plan on going into.

Rory Sutherland worked his way from the very bottom to the top of the Advertising field. He originally worked as a teacher until he was able to start following his dreams and become a junior copywriter at Ogilvy and Mather's planning department. Sutherland had always been interested in the Internet, a passion that eventually boosted his career. During a time when the Internet and social media were not a large part of Advertising, Sutherland saw the potential that they had in contributing to the success of Advertising. He started writing a blog at Campaign's Brand Republic site, and his career took off from there. Today Rory Sutherland continues to work in Advertising as Executive Creative Director and Vice-Chairman of the Ogilvy Group and spends a lot of time speaking about it and offering advice to those who aspire to work in the Advertising field.

I plan to begin my journey to working in the Public Relations field by attending Southern Methodist University next Fall. There I am majoring in Corporate Communications and Public Affairs and will participate in as many Public Relations-related internships as possible until I graduate. After receiving my Bachelor's Degree, I will most likely go to graduate school at another university in order to get my Master's Degree. While attending graduate school I will hopefully also be able to have a job or an internship at a Public Relations firm. Ultimately I would love to own my own Public Relations firm, so I know that I will have to gain a great amount of experience and do a lot of networking in order to reach this goal.

Here's the video: http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_an_ad_man.html