In his TED talk, Dan Cobley, a marketing director at Google, shares insights from physics that relate to marketing strategies. He explains how principles like Newton's second law and Heisenberg's uncertainty describe brand perception and consumer behavior, emphasizing the challenges brands face in maintaining their image. Cobley warns that a single negative event can quickly dismantle years of positive brand building, urging marketers to embrace the evolving digital landscape where consumer voices are increasingly powerful.

1. WHAT PHYSICS TAUGHT ME
ABOUT MARKETING
TED Talk by Dan Cobley

2. ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Dan Cobley is a marketing
director at Google, where he
connects customers and
businesses, helping both
navigate digital space to find
what they need.

3. NEWTON’S SECOND LAW
The force equals mass times acceleration.
The bigger a brand, the more difficult it is
to reposition it.

4. That is why companies
like Unilever and P&G
keep brands separate,
like Ariel and Pringles
and Dove rather than
having one giant
parent brand.

5. HEISENBERG’S UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE
It is impossible to measure exactly the state and the
momentum of a particle, because the act of
measuring it changes it.
The act of observing consumers changes their
behavior.

6. A group of mothers who are
talking about their children
in a focus group, will always
say that almost none of
them buy lots of junk food.
And yet, McDonald's sells
hundreds of millions of
burgers every year.

7. SCIENTIFIC METHOD
You cannot prove a hypothesis through observation, you can
only disprove it.
You can invest for a long time in a brand, but a single
contrary observation of that positioning will destroy
consumers' belief.

8. BP spent millions of pounds over
many years building up its
credentials as an environmentally
friendly brand, but then the oil spill
happened. One bad week can
undermine decades of good work.
So be really careful to try and avoid
the screw-ups that can undermine
your brand.

9. THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS
Entropy will always increase.
Distribution of brand energy gets your brand
closer to the people, more in with the people

10. 20 years ago one message
controlled by one marketing
manager could pretty much
define a brand. Now, with
the digital comment
creation and distribution
tools that are available to
every consumer, it's
impossible to control where
it goes.
You can't fight it, so
embrace it and find a way to
work with it.

11. TED Talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_cobley_what_
physics_taught_me_about_marketing/