Uploaded March 2015 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
This has to be one of the most stunning examples of the effectiveness of using incongruity to re-focus people’s attention to something.
Imagine you are an advertiser and you have been asked to re-launch a product (Shreddies – a square-shaped breakfast cereal) for a particular market. Please bear in mind that a) the product has been around for donkey’s years and everyone knows it b) you have not changed the product in any way! Quite a tall order, right? In fact, Hunter Sommerville, the guy who was charged with designing the box, was at his wit’s end – if ever there was a ‘mission impossible’ this was it! And then an idea struck him – perhaps if he rotated the picture by 45 degrees?!? Here is Rory Sutherland to tell us the story in his own inimitable style...
The question for us teachers of course is this: if advertisers can revive people’s attention in something by means of a little trick, can we not perhaps ‘tweak’ some activities so that they are more exciting for our students?
[NB: I do not own the copyright to this video clip. I have uploaded it here for educational purposes].
This has to be one of the most stunning examples of the effectiveness of using incongruity to re-focus people’s attention to something.
Imagine you are an advertiser and you have been asked to re-launch a product (Shreddies – a square-shaped breakfast cereal) for a particular market. Please bear in mind that a) the product has been around for donkey’s years and everyone knows it b) you have not changed the product in any way! Quite a tall order, right? In fact, Hunter Sommerville, the guy who was charged with designing the box, was at his wit’s end – if ever there was a ‘mission impossible’ this was it! And then an idea struck him – perhaps if he rotated the picture by 45 degrees?!? Here is Rory Sutherland to tell us the story in his own inimitable style...
The question for us teachers of course is this: if advertisers can revive people’s attention in something by means of a little trick, can we not perhaps ‘tweak’ some activities so that they are more exciting for our students?
[NB: I do not own the copyright to this video clip. I have uploaded it here for educational purposes].
