We're All in Marketing: What Evolution Tells Us About Advertising | Ethan Decker | TEDxSMU

Advertising is the Dirty Profession, famous for snake oil salesmen and shysters, shilling things that nobody needs, creating this bankrupt consumerist culture. But what if I told you that you were unknowingly in advertising too? My own journey from human evolution and ecology into marketing has taught me that we are all in advertising—and that’s actually a good thing.

Ethan Decker is an ecologist who took a left turn and ended up in advertising. He’s now VP of Insight & Strategy at The Integer Group, one of the largest retail, promotion & shopper marketing agencies in the world. He is a marketer, a researcher, a scientist, a manager, an editor, a storyteller, a performer, and an ecologist. He's done ethnographies in Tokyo and statistics in Matlab. He's helped sell cereal and women's clothes. He’s created Olympic advertising campaigns and new product lines. He's worked with some of the biggest marketers in the world (including P&G, Kellogg, and PepsiCo).
Ethan has a BA in sociology and a PhD in urban ecology and human evolution, and he studied complex systems theory at the Santa Fe Institute. He’s been published in PloS ONE, Ann Rev Energy & Environment and other places. He’s competed in the Swing Dance US Open and the UPA Ultimate Frisbee Championships. And he’s got quite the collection of graphic novels.

[ElBank]

A very eloquent and nice presentation. I find this interesting and in some ways convincing. But I still can't get passed why these symbolic values must happen through consumption? There are other ways to signal your interest, such as taking a job as an investment banker or to go for an academic career, or why not doing a hobby? There's also a dark side to conspicuous signalling, i.e. that it might lead us to enhance divides that might be superficial or not really relevant at first but become more actualized as they create distance between people, not least with regard to puschase power). Also, the industry is not merely a caterer to needs but a creator too (think fast fashion). Yet, a thought-stimulating presentation, especially for critics of marketing.

[justinrodriguez]

Ethan makes marketing sound fun innovative and gives you a different perspective. He gives great examples and visuals that allow us to comprehend marketing at its roots. Using real life examples like spiders and even flowers. Using the rattle snake example was creative.

[nicestuff]

the only positive advertising speech I've heard so far

[edwinjiheng_msia]

dont know why this came up on my phone today but it was really helpful. thank you so much for sharing.

[egehancelik]

it's a literally epic talk, i never heard of that much eclectic approach before, really got me thinking about lots of stuff simultaneously.

[lizhendrix]

So I am writing an essay for my college class about this video, one of the questions is, "What did you take away as Ethan Decker's top 4 concepts about advertising?" I have watched this video over and over, about 7 times now, is anyone about to help me understand what the 4 concepts he is talking about?

[EKDupre]

This video has just drastically altered my perspective!

[karlihisler]

This was such an interesting take on advertising, very cool!

[drsjwhitman]

Excellent; useful for psychology, marketing, business admin classes. Thank you.

[enrichingexchanges]

Advertising does not equal marketing. This is a fundamental myth that people either knowingly or unknowingly propagate. Marketing is about find genuinely value maximizing exchanges for customers, firms, and any other principal involved in the value-creation process. It is not about creating jingles in people's heads. One of the many TedX that defy the idea that TED talks are good talks.

[maxoliveira]

Awesome talk, always thought about it like that. Does anyone knows if this guy has any books on it?

[noncomplier]

"We're All in Marketing." - Not me. I use Adblocker.

[williamf.buckleyjr]

And 32 year old men still wear their college clothes.

[joaomarone]

If you have an ethical stance, always seek the truth inherent in each product and tell this truth, advertising will not be harmful. It will helpfull.

[asprihashrivastava]

Yeah!!! Actually telling us the true nature of advertisements. Really impressive. We are not superficial creatures but we are symbolic...

[iyrnn]

argument that there is unethical advertising vs. necessary advertising doesn't make sense. must absolve advertising of ethics to get closer to that which we can't grasp. students interested in these topics should look into rhetorical theory

[sigmaergrundlet]

So that was an advertise for advertises

What i dont get is, he compares ads to a bee when collecting from flowers, the bee still has the benefit of getting sugar from the flower, to create honey later on,
What is my benfit from watching ads, about products that im not interested in?

I see none, just wasting my time

In my youth kids were wearing nike, addidas and lets say vans shoes, now kids want chanel, armani and very expensive watches, that might also be an effect from those oh so nice advertises

[khalili]

Decent presentation, pleasant narrative but no science. Aside from that, there are numerous theories, principles, and models concerning marketing.

[thethreeboystogether-sprea]

Advertising is a tool, it all depends on who is the user, like all other tools, like a knife or nuclear bomb, but in this time most of the advertisement are profit driven....not really to help decision making

[admiralmurat]

Why can't I sell my private data on a data stock market?