5 Must Watch TED Talks About Marketing

Ideas Worth Spreading

Published in

Marketing And Growth Hacking

4 min readMay 3, 2016

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a global set of conferences run by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, under the slogan “Ideas Worth Spreading”.

TED host short and influential talks from some of the greatest minds in the world. The speakers have a unique way of engaging any audience with their ability to create an informative, easy to digest and inviting narrative; all skills that are vital to any marketer.

We have compiled a list of 5, must watch, TED Talks about marketing. They successfully harness great storytelling as well as provide marketers with important insights, forward-thinking techniques and practices.

1. How to Get Ideas to Spread

Seth Godin, best-selling author, entrepreneur, and marketer is also an excellent speaker who can breakdown even the most complex concepts. In this talk, he educates us on the importance of having a unique, stand-out product or idea as oppose to something average. He highlights the importance of coming up with something remarkable and marketing it at a group who care.

2. How to Make Choosing Easier

Sheena Iyengar, author of ‘The Art of Choosing’, focusses her talk on the ‘choice overload problem.’ As a graduate student, she conducted research on a local grocery store covering this issue. In this talk, she illustrates the choosing experience for a consumer and how techniques such as cuts, concretisation, categorisation and condition for complexity can ultimately benefit your business. She teaches us how receptiveness to consumers can increase engagement and inspire action.

3. Choice, Happiness and Spaghetti Sauce

In contrast to Sheena Iyengar’s talk, Malcolm Gladwell (best-selling author and journalist) highlights the importance of human variability for happiness using the example of spaghetti sauce. He tells a great story involving Howard Moskowitz, who revolutionised the way in which companies connect their brand and product. How far do we execute this to ensure there is sufficient variety as well as a clearly defined, engaging and recognisable brand for our consumers?

4. Life Lessons From an Ad Man

Rory Sutherland, Ogilvy Ad man, has a unique ability to educate and entertain at the same time. This amusing talk looks at “real” value against perceived value. He proclaims that individuals can obtain the same amount of satisfaction from a change in a perceived value of something as they can from the “real” value of something. He ties this together towards the end of his talk by relating this though-provoking idea to the happiness in our lives. Brilliant, informative and funny!

5. What Physics Taught Me About Marketing

A short talk by Dan Cobley, former MD of Google UK. He demonstrates the similarities between the laws of physics and marketing. He highlights Newton’s second law, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, the scientific method and the second law of thermodynamics to explain the fundamental theories of branding.

In summary, these talks emphasise the importance of being remarkable, making familiar things new, knowing the patterns of your consumers as well as recognising the fundamentals of branding. In addition, we have noted the increasing importance of design with marketing and how not only eye-catching but also consistent design can reinforce your marketing strategy.

For more on how visual design can boost your content marketing, read our blog post: