Rory Sutherland Leads Ogilvy in Driving Change Through Pimp My Cause

 

Rory Sutherland, Vice-Chairman of Ogilvy & Mather UK and world-leading proponent of behavioural economics is leading a new collaboration between Pimp My Cause and Ogilvy.

 

 

The partnership will see Ogilvy’s specialist behavioural science practice, Ogilvy Change, adopt three Pimp My Cause member organisations a year. 

 

Ogilvy Change uses the latest in cognitive psychology, social psychology and behavioural economics to create behavioural change in the real world.

 

The collaboration will help develop practical creative applications of recent advances in the science of behavioural economics, effectively creating a "field lab" for implementing behavioural insight in addressing real world social problems. 

 

Rory Sutherland is one of the most influential figures in advertising, and championed the role that behavioural economics plays in marketing during his chairmanship of the IPA. “The purpose of behavioural economics is simple. It is to enable people to make better choices by designing and framing choices in accordance with human nature. The value this can offer to social marketing programmes and charities is potentially limitless. It was always our intention that #ogilvychange should devote part of its time to charitable causes and to small businesses. There were two reasons for this. One is wholly altruistic - the use of behavioural economics is a relatively quick and inexpensive way to make a difference to such organisations where it matters most. And there is, of course, an ulterior motive, in that lessons learned from these activities can be deployed elsewhere in our commercial work”.

 

In Rory’s Tedx talk in Athens he talks about the importance of perception over reality and the value of psychology over traditional economics in finding a successful outcome to any problem. 

 

According to Jez Groom, head of #ogilvychange, “We created Ogilvy Change to increase the health, wealth and wellbeing of people across the world and we can think of no better partnership, than with Pimp My Cause to further this ambition. Ogilvy Change combines the gravitas of academia with the real world communication expertise to create little behavioural ideas that can have a demonstrable effect and can really help some of these very worthwhile causes.”

 

Three cause members who are actively seeking solutions to behaviour change problems will be selected per year in an ongoing collaboration that will support each chosen cause with behavioural advice and creative solutions to the challenges they face. The process will create a new body of emerging knowledge that will be shared across the Pimp My Cause platform and across Ogilvy's audiences for the broader benefit of society. There are also plans to develop fresh ways to activate Ogilvy's growing broader behaviour change community inside and outside the Group to harness its talent for good. 

 

Paul Skinner, founder of Pimp My Cause said: "Behavioural economics represents a great opportunity for small charities and social enterprises seeking to make a big difference. Its insights often cost nothing to apply and can make a disproportionate contribution to the kinds of changes that voluntary sector organisations are trying to achieve. This is also a great example of leadership from Ogilvy in showing that marketers are among the best placed professionals to creatively apply its principles and that agencies can make a real difference even away from their traditional high media spend environment."