What physics can teach us about marketing

I have just heart to an audio record «What physics can teach us about marketing». Here is the reference: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_cobley_what_physics_taught_me_about_marketing.html

This record is rather difficult for understanding. The duration of the video is 7:39 min but there is a very fluent English of Mr. Cobley and I needed 3 times to understand the maintenance of this video record. This a video talk with Dan Cobley, who is a marketing director in Google. His duty is to connect customers and businesses, helping to satisfy their needs. He has worked in both the UK and US, but always in marketing although his first degree from Oxford is in physics. In his speech, Dan explains what physics taught him about marketing. He gives examples of the main physical laws and transfers his knowledge from physics to marketing.

Firstly he said about Newton’s Law: For a larger particle of larger mass requires more force to change its direction. It’s the same with brands: the bigger the brand, the more force is needed to change its positioning.

Then he explained Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle: You can never accurately and exactly measure the particle, because observation changes it. The message for marketing is that try to measure what consumers actually do, rather than what they say they’ll do, or anticipate they’ll do.

The next point was The fundamental axiom of physics: you can’t prove a hypothesis through observation, it’s easier to disprove it. As to marketing: no matter how much is invested in your brand, one bad week can undermine decades of good work.

And in the end of his performance he said about The second law of thermodynamics: Entropy will always increase. Message for marketing: your brand is more dispersed than you suppose.

To my mind, Dan’s speech is very informative. I guessed that all of the sciences were related together, but I didn’t imagine such a close connection between physics and marketing.