A great talk by Rory Sutherland on the value of advertising:
“Rory makes the daring assertion that a change in perceived value can be just as satisfying as what we consider “real” value; his conclusion has interesting consequences for how we look at life.“
UPDATE: TED have posted a transcript of the fantastic Q&A session with Rory that accompanied this talk – take a look here.
Quote taken from the TED site. Many thanks to Dave Trott for introducing me to Rory’s speech, and to Anjali for alerting me to the Q&A.
eskimon 
Thanks for pointing out the video Simon…The bit about improving the trains speed reminds me a lot of sales saying they need a cheaper product (damaging, doesn’t work)…enter marketing’s great challenge.
You know, my mother is spanish and my father is english, and every X-Mas I visit 1/2 of my brit familiy in the UK (I’m in Barcelona right now).
And I must say…
I LOVE BRITISH HUMOUR
p.d.: great sentence “if we changed perceptions and gave value to free assets such as health or happiness we would be conscious of how wealthy we really are”