Rory Sutherland: Life lessons from an ad man

We don’t value things; we value their meaning.

If you propose any solution where the gain in perceived value outweighs the attendant expenditure in money, time, effort or resources, people either don’t believe you, or worse, they think you are somehow cheating them.

Logic requires that people find universal laws, but outside of scientific fields and once human psychology has a role to play, it is perfectly possible for behavior to become contradictory.

A tax rise can cause you to work less because the returns of your labor are lower, or work harder to maintain your present level of

Bits deliver information, but costliness carries meaning.

it’s easy to achieve massive improvements in perception at a fraction of the cost of equivalent improvements in reality.