Advertising is the Dirty Profession, famous for snake oil salesmen and shysters, shilling things that nobody needs, creating this bankrupt consumerist culture. But what if I told you that you were unknowingly in advertising too? My own journey from human evolution and ecology into marketing has taught me that we are all in advertising—and that’s actually a good thing.

Ethan Decker is an ecologist who took a left turn and ended up in advertising. He’s now VP of Insight & Strategy at The Integer Group, one of the largest retail, promotion & shopper marketing agencies in the world. He is a marketer, a researcher, a scientist, a manager, an editor, a storyteller, a performer, and an ecologist. He's done ethnographies in Tokyo and statistics in Matlab. He's helped sell cereal and women's clothes. He’s created Olympic advertising campaigns and new product lines. He's worked with some of the biggest marketers in the world (including P&G, Kellogg, and PepsiCo).
Ethan has a BA in sociology and a PhD in urban ecology and human evolution, and he studied complex systems theory at the Santa Fe Institute. He’s been published in PloS ONE, Ann Rev Energy & Environment and other places. He’s competed in the Swing Dance US Open and the UPA Ultimate Frisbee Championships. And he’s got quite the collection of graphic novels.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx