Rory Sutherland: ‘I now understand how teenage celebrities feel like’
Spend enough time scrolling through on YouTube, TikTok or Instagram these days and it’s won’t take long for you to come across the most unlikely social media sensation of the last couple of years – Rory Sutherland.
This 59-year-old Cambridge graduate and advertising executive has become a well-known face ever since an enterprising film student started repurposing footage of his talks and posting them across social media – and in the words of Sutherland – ‘TikTok-ising them’.
Now the vice-chairman of Ogilvy UK has racked up millions of views and become famous enough to not even go into Greggs and not be stopped for a selfie.
Asked on a new episode of City PM‘s Boardroom Uncovered what he makes of his new-found fame, Rory Sutherland said: “That’s something I never anticipated. It wasn’t my intention, of course.
“It was a bit like that Lord Byron quote that ‘I woke up and found myself famous’.”
He added: “The next thing I knew is I was suddenly being mobbed by school kids and it wasn’t my intention.
“I knew what I said was of interest to a certain audience, but I never really expected it to have such a wide appeal.
“It’s disproportionately people involved in business, entrepreneurs, etc. or just, you know, young people who are curious who, effectively constitute the audience. But it actually goes very, very wide.
“And by the way, I’m really, really pleased about that because I think we need to diversify the kind of people who work in marketing.
“I think it’s been a little bit homogeneous. And so effectively, albeit unintentionally, kind of preaching the marketing gospel a little bit and continually reminding business that marketing and innovation are really where the value is created.”
Rory Sutherland: ‘It’s the right level of fame’
Before becoming a well-known face, Rory Sutherland admits to being confused as to why teenage celebrities would often complain about the level of fame they had attained.
“When you hear people who are very famous, very young, kind of bemoaning the state of affairs, you always go, yeah come on, you know, I mean, who’s complaining? You’re super rich and super famous”, he said.
“As a teenage star who wouldn’t want that? And then you realise that not having had any proportion of your life spent in reasonable anonymity probably is – in defence of those people – it probably is a bit of a pain.”
But speaking on Boardroom Uncovered, Rory Sutherland said he’s experiencing “the right level of fame”.
He said: “You don’t want the level of fame where you need an entourage or security, or where your tour bus is overturned by screaming Japanese schoolgirls. I don’t want that.”
Sutherland added: “I have had sort of 57 years of relative obscurity. And so at the age of 59, you know, I’m not that bothered.
“It’s quite gratifying. It’s quite fun. But it’s another level of what I call one per airport, one per railway station.
“You’ll be approached for a selfie if you move through any sort of large public concourse.
“But it’s not a level where effectively I need to walk around with a vast entourage or anything like that.”