The Repackaging Revolution: How Marketers Create Value From Thin Air

Marketing is no longer about what you do, stated Rory, who joined the Conference virtually. Marketing has failed to market itself properly and as a result, it's undervalued by finance, operations and boardrooms everywhere. The solution? Stop selling what you do and start selling how you think.

Rory opened his session with a bold claim: marketing is terrible at marketing itself. We define ourselves by what we do rather than how we think, and that's why finance and operations teams don't respect us. If marketers want a seat at the top table, they need to change the conversation.

The Simple, Big Power of Repackaging

He used Frubes as his opening case study. Yoplait makes yoghurt. Parents wanted to send yoghurt to school with their kids but two problems stopped them. First, yoghurt in pots spills easily, second, kids needed spoons and the spoons never came home. Yoplait solved both by putting yoghurt in a squeezable tube that could be frozen for eight hours. No spillage, no spoon – an entirely new consumption opportunity unlocked. That's repackaging: same product, different container - massive value created.

Rory became well-known by doing the same thing with his work. He didn't set out to rebrand behavioural science for marketers, he just realised that when he talked about psychology instead of posters, people outside marketing paid attention. Finance directors, engineers and CEOs suddenly found his ideas interesting, not because he changed what he did, he just changed how he described it.

The core of his argument is simple: it doesn't matter what things are, it matters how people feel about them. Rory pointed to the feels-like temperature on American weather forecasts. Objective temperature tells you one thing, feels-like temperature factors in wind chill and humidity and that's what people care about. That's marketing thinking - understanding perception, not just reality.

His best example was the London Overground. London has a tube map that everyone uses to navigate the city. For years, certain railway lines existed but weren't on the tube map. Londoners ignored them because railways are for going to Manchester, not getting around London. Transport for London rebranded those lines as the Overground, adding them to the tube map, and calling them a tube line. On the first day, usage went up 400%. The infrastructure didn't change, the psychology did. That's 95% of the value created through perception, not steel.

Small Changes, Big Returns

He shared smaller examples too. Hotels now charge extra for pool access rooms and gym access rooms. Those rooms always existed near the pool and gym but by giving them a name, hotels turned proximity into a feature worth paying for. Airlines charge for speedy boarding. Someone has to board first, why not monetise it? These aren't marketing campaigns. They're marketing thinking applied to pricing and operations.

Rory shared a story about a car hire employee called John in Glasgow. John had the highest customer satisfaction rating in Scotland. When Rory returned his car to a different location, John emailed him to make sure everything was okay - nobody else does that. It's brilliant because it shows someone cares after the transaction is complete. John isn't a marketer but he's thinking like one.

The session ended with a warning. Rory argued that publicly listed companies can no longer build great brands because they're slaves to quarterly earnings and shareholder demands. The best brands today are founder-led or family-owned. They choose their own success metrics and operate on their own timescales. That freedom lets them take risks and build for the long term.

Rory didn't sugar coat it: marketing is undervalued because marketers focus on outputs rather than outcomes. Change the narrative, well how you think, not what you produce. That's how you get the respect you deserve.