The greatest TED Talk ever sold - Morgan Spurlock

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yes

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yes I'm

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I have but

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spent the past few years on putting myself into situations that are

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usually very difficult and at the same time somewhat dangerous

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I R went to prison difficult

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I worked in a coal mine dangerous

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I filmed in war zones difficult

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and dangerous and I spent thirty days eating nothing but this

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fun in the beginning little difficult the middle

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very dangerous in the end in fact most my career I've been immersing myself

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into

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seemingly horrible situations for the whole goal of trying to

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examine societal issues in a way that make them engaging

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that make them interesting that hopefully break them down in a way that

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make them entertaining and accessible to an audience

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so when I knew I was coming here do with had talked was gonna look at the world a

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branding in sponsorship

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I knew I would want to do something a little different so some you may or may

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not have heard

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couple weeks ago i took out an ad on e-bay

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I set out some Facebook messages some Twitter messages

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I gave people the opportunity to buy the naming rights to my 2011 TED talk

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that's right some lucky individual corporation

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for-profit or non-profit was gonna get the once in a lifetime opportunity

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because I'm sure Chris Anderson will never let it happen again

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to buy the naming rights the talk you're watching right now

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that at the time didn't have a title didn't really have a lot of content in

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didn't really get much hint as to what the subject matter would actually be

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so you're getting was this your name here presents

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my TED talk that you have no idea what the subject is depending on the content

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could ultimately blow up in your face especially

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if I make you or your company look stupid for doing it but that being said

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it's a very good media opportunity

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you know how many people watched these Ted talks: salat

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that's just the working title by the way

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so even with that caveat

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I knew that someone would buy the naming rights now if you're betting that a year

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ago I would have been able to tell you that with any certainty

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but in the new project I'm working on my new film examine the world marketing

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advertising

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and as I said earlier I put myself in some pretty horrible situations over the

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years

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but nothing could prepare me nothing could ready for anything

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as difficult or is dangerous

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as going into the rooms with these guys

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you see I had this idea for a movie what I want to do

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its maker fell all about product placement marketing and advertising

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for the entire film is funded by product placement marketing and advertising so

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the moving

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what we call the greatest movie ever sold so what happens in the greatest

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movie ever sold

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is that everything from top to bottom from start to finish is Brandon from

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beginning to end

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you know from the above the title sponsor you'll see in the movie which is

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brand X

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now this brand the Qualcomm Stadium the you know

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staple center extraordinary for the film in perpetuity forever

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and so the film explores this whole area it's what tradução ever nearer

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I paradise okay I I was more prison for thirty

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period forever not going to have the brand X title sponsor

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for Amex we saw every category Canada fell so maybe we sell a few incomes the

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great issue you ever war

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the greatest car you overdraw from agree however sold you know the

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the greatest ranking member haggerty the greatest movie ever sold so the idea is

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the I'm just showing that brands a party like that actually get them to finance

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the film's identify as the film and actually we show the whole process and

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how does it work

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the goal this whole film is transparency you're gonna see the whole thing take

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place in this movie

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so that's the the whole concept the whole film start to finish

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and I would love for CNG to help make it happen you know it's it's funny cuz when

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I first here

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it is the people to respect for an audience

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I don't know how receptive people were are going to be too without

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your perspective 3rd year I don't use angle cuz that serve as a negative I

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think that you should know how this is gonna prep player no idea

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how much money for the tix to do this 1.5 million for

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I i think that you can have a hard time meeting with them but I think it's

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you certainly worth pursuing couple really big of these brands

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who knows maybe by the time the film comes out we look like

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a bunch bothering idiots putting the responsibility I have my the response is

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mostly will be no

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doesn't have a cell because the sellers have some company have

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both meaning I'll not so optimistic

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so so can you help me any help

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I can help okay but curse

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awesome I gotta fight figure out which branch yeah

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that steps challenge when you when you look at the people you deal with the car

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we've got some places we can go

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okay turn the camera I thought turn the camera off mad let's have an

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off-the-record conversation

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turns out it really means we want nothing to do with your movie and just

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like that

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one by one all these companies suddenly disappeared

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none of them wanted anything to do with this movie I mean I was amazed

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they wanted absolutely nothing to do with this project knowing that I was

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blown away because I thought the whole concept the ideal advertising to get

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your product up from as many people as possible

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to get as many people see it as possible socially in today's world this

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this intersection and new media told median the fractured media landscape

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isn't the idea to get that new buzzworthy

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delivery vehicle it's going to get that message to the masses

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that's what I thought but the problem was you see

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my idea had one fatal flaw

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and that flaw was this

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actually know that was not a flaw whatsoever that would have been a

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problem at all

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see this would've been fine but what this image represents was the problem

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see when you do a google image search for transparency

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states's the

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this is one of the first images that comes up so I like the way you roll

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Sergey Brin

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no the

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this this was the problem transparency

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free from pretense or deceit easily detected are seen through

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readily understood characterized by visibility or accessibility information

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especially concerning

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business practices that last line being probably the biggest problem

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you see we hear a lot about transparency these days in our politicians say

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for president said that even our CEOs say

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but suddenly when it comes down to it becoming a reality something suddenly

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changed but why

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while transparency is scary body

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like that odd still screaming bear it's unpredictable

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like this art country road

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and it's also very risky what else is

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what else is risky

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eating an entire bowl of Cool Whip the

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that's very risky

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its know when I started talking to companies

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you're telling them you know we wanted to tell the story and they said no we

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want you to tell a story

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we want to tell a story with we just want to tell our story

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see when I was a kid my father would catch me in some sort by:

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mary is give me look the often gave me he would say son there's three sides to

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every story

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there's your story there's my story

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and there's the real story basie with the storm we want to tell the real story

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but with only one company one agency willing to help me and that's only

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because I knew John Bonham richard kirshenbaum for years

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I realized that I would have to go on my own I have to cut out the middleman to

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go to the company's myself us

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you my softball a mighty so we suddenly start to realize what I start to realize

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that

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we started having conversation with these companies the idea understanding

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your brand

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is a universal problem I friends make great big giant

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Hollywood films I've transmittal independent films like I make

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and the friends might make big giant hollywood movie say that the reason

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they're going to so successful

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is because the brand partners that they have and my friends make small

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independent films a

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why are we supposed to compete with these big giant hollywood movies in the

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movie

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is called the greatest movie ever sold

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is and how specifically what we see man I fell anytime I'm getting ready to go

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anytime I opened up my medicine cabinet you will see

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Vanier quality time I do an interview with someone

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I could say are you are you are you freshen up for the scenario

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are you are you ready little nervous I want help to calm down so maybe you

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shoulda

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maybe should put some on for the interviews will offer you know what I

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miss my family says whether to for fusion or paradise winds here they'll

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have their chance you know what we will have

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have them here for both male or female you know solid roller stick whatever may

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be

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that's the that's the two cent or so now I cannot

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answered your questions and give you the five cent or we are a small every much

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like you talk about being a smaller

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in a movie we are very much a challenger brands we don't have the budgets that

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are the brains have

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so doing things like this you remind people about and

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is this kind of why we're interested in it for the words that you use to

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describe an man is

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black us

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at all these other way when this guy from so it's been an hour are

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we talking to a bold bowing out fresh I think fresh is a great word the release

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pins this category into the positive for CNN

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fights owner and when this fragrance pizza fresh

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fresh we thank you for sure longer matter freshness more freshness

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three times for sure things like that that are you know more about housing

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benefit

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and that's a multi-million dollar corporation

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what about me what about a regular guy I need to go talk to the man on the street

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the people were like me the regular Joes they need to tell me about my brand how

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would you guys described your brand

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I live for

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on airline

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I really nice clothes

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eighty survival needs skater punk all

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unless its laundry day by what is brand Jerry unique

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unique I guess look I'm Sandra style I am would be like

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I dark glamour I like a lot of black colors lot of bad grades and stuff like

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that by

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usually some that have an accessory like sunglasses

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for I like rest on things like that to you if timer brands

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he might be a classy

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can versatile

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the brand that I am

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is a I would call it casual flack part hippie party Ovi

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Park Brooklyn girl now from the pentagon

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myself had toys all over the country all over the world

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I guess that's my brand in mind worked a little industry

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that's my rant my bread is FedEx because I deliver the goods

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veiled writer alcoholic friend I

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is that something I'm arm a lawyer brand

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I I'm top

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well we can all be brand tom but I do often find myself at the intersection of

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dark glamour in casual fly

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when I realized I needed an expert I need somebody to get inside my head

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so many could really help me understand what they call your brand personality in

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so I found a company called

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all sons of men in Pittsburgh with a top companies like Nestle for Brees hallmark

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discover that brand personality think you do it for them surely they could do

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it for me

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you write pictures I I did the very first picture

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is

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a picture my family and so tell me a little bit how it relates to you about

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some things that you like these are the people who

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shape the way I look at the world tell me about this world missile

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blankets the I think euros or you livin life people that are on your friends

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your family

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the the way you live your life the job you do like most things down and started

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from one place in from Houston starter but my family in West Virginia

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what's next on the docket the next one this is the best day ever

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how does this relate to that some things about who you are and he's like who I

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want to be

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I like things that are different I like things that are weird

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critics picks: time with the wife is what does that do for us

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what does the machete peeps state are you in now it's important to me

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what is that

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has you 31

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mother minimums TV series will come of age

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thank you make thank you yeah thanks for your patience great job yeah I think so

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I

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yeah and I was gonna come to us

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there was a lot of crazy going on there the first thing we saw

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what's this idea that you had two distinct but complementary sides to

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your brand personality Morgan Spurlock brand is mindful play brand

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those are kinda juxtapose very nicely together and I think there's almost a

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paradox with those I think some companies

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will just focus on one one of their strengths or you know

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or the other instead of focusing on both most companies

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tend to in scheme in nature to avoid

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things that they're not sure %uh voy fear those elements and you really

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embrace those and you actually tournament deposits for in skits

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anything to see

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what other brands are like that the first time here's a classic I

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Apple and you can see here too target

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we many from mini coopers and JetBlue

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and his playful brands in mind for brands those sort of things that have

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come and gone back to play for

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mindful brands a pretty powerful thing a playful Michael Brandt what is your

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brand affinity actually describe your brand identity your brand personality

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what would you be

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are you in up attributes are you something that gets the blood flowing

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are you more for down outer beauty something for more calm

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reserve conservative a bad review to things like

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being playful being fresh like the fresh prince

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contemporary adventurous edgier daring like Errol Flynn

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nimbler agile profane domineering magical mystical like Gandalf

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are you more down attributes are you mine for sophisticated like 007 are you

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established

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traditional nurturing protective empathetic like The Oprah

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are you reliable stable familiar safe secure sacred

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contemplated or wise like the Dalai Lama

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or Yoda over the course this film

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we had five hundred-plus companies

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who were up and down coming say no they didn't want any part of this project

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they wanted nothing to do with this film mainly because they had no control

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they would have no control over the final product but we did get seventeen

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brand partners

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who are willing to relinquish that controls who wanted to be in business

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with someone is mindful as playful as myself

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any alternately empowered us to tell stories that normally we wouldn't be

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able to tell

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up story that an advertiser would normally never get behind

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been able to tell the story about your a marketing

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as we got into telling the story in this film about how now they're using MRI's

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to target

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the desire synergy your brain for both commercials as well

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as movie marketing we with the same follower they banned outdoor advertising

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in the entire city for the past five years there's no billboards is no

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posters and flyers nothing

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and we went to school districts

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for now companies are making their way into cash-strapped schools all across

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America

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was incredible for me is the the projects that I've gotten the most be

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back out a bribe had the most success in the ones where I been wracked with

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things directly and that's what these brands did

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the cut out the middleman they cut out their agencies and said maybe these

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ABC's don't have my best interests in mind

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I'm gonna deal directly with the artist I'm gonna work with them to create

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something different something easy to get people thinking it's going to

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challenge the way we look at the world

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and how's that been for them has been successful what is the film premiered at

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the Sundance Film Festival is just take a look

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according to burrell's the movie premiered in January and since then and

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this is the name the whole thing we've had more than $900 million media

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impressions for this film

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facility covering this like a two-and-a-half week period that's only

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on line 0 print no TV

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the film has the Ministry beauty at its not even online it's not even streaming

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it's not even been out to other foreign countries yet

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salt only this film has already started to

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gain a lot of momentum not bad for a project that almost every at ABC we

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talked to advise their clients not to take part

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what I always believe is that if you take chances if you take risks

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that in those risks will come opportunity I believe that when you push

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people away from that

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you pushing them more towards failure I believe that when you train your

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employees to be risk-averse

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when you're preparing your whole company to be reward challenged

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I feel like that what has to happen moving forward as we need to encourage

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people

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to take risks we do encourage people to not be afraid of opportunism a scare

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them

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ultimately moving forward I think we have to embrace fear

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we gotta put that bear in a cage

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embrace fear embrace risk

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one big spoonful at a time we have to embrace risk in alternately we have to

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embrace

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transparency today more than ever

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a little honesty is going to go a long way and that being said their honesty

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and transparency

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my entire talking brace transparency has been brought to you

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by my good friends it EMC

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through for seven thousand one hundred dollars bought the naming rights on

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e-bay

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now

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EMC turning big data into a big opportunity

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for organizations all over the world EMC presents

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embrace transparency thank you very much guys

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now

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Morgan

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many transparency I what exactly happened to that seventy one hundred

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dollars that is a fantastic question

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I have in my pocket a check

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made out to the parent organization that had foundation the sapling foundation a

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check for seven thousand one hundred dollars

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to be applied towards my tenants for next year's test %ah

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the

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of