David Ogilvy: Ogilvy on Advertising

Overture

When Aeschines spoke, they said, “How well he speaks.” But when Demosthenes spoke, they said, “Let us march against Philip.”

There have always been noisy lunatics on the fringes of the advertising business. They are seldom found out, because they gravitate to the kind of clients who, bamboozled by their rhetoric, do not hold them responsible for sales results.

How to produce advertising that sells

The wrong advertising can actually reduce the sales of a product.

First study the product you are going to advertise. Your next chore is to find out what kind of advertising your competitors have been doing for similar products, and with what success. Now comes research among consumers. Find out how they think about your kind of product, what language they use, what attributes are important and what promise would be most likely to make them buy your brand. Now consider how you want to position your product. What product does, and who is it for.

Whenever you can, make the product itself the hero of your advertising.

When faced with selling ‘parity’ products, all you can hope to do is explain their virtues more persuasively than your competitors.

If you are lucky enough to write a good advertisement, repeat it until it stops selling. You aren’t advertising to a standing army; you are advertising to a moving parade.

Most campaigns are too complicated.

Leo Burnett: “When you reach for the stars, you may not quite get one, but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.”[1]

It is remarkable how little the plus and minus factors have changed over the years. With very few exceptions, consumers continue to react to the same techniques in the same way.

The Benton & Bowles agency holds that ‘if it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative’. Amen.

Do your homework, avoid committees, learn from research, watch what the direct-response advertisers do, and stay away from irrelevant sex.

Jobs in advertising – and how to get them

At the start of your career in advertising, what you learn is more important than what you earn.

Most good copywriters are either Poets or Killers according to William Maynard. Poets see and ad as an end. Killers as a means to an end. If you are both killer and poet, you get rich.

Account executives can be divided into custodians and contributors.

How to run an advertising agency

Make it fun to work in your agency.

Friction between copywriters and account executives is endemic in all agencies. Copywriters traditionally regard AE as brainless bullies. AE are apt to regard copywrites as irresponsible prima donas.

If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger that we are, we shall become a company of giants.

Never hire your friends.

Great leaders are always fanatically committed to their jobs. They do not suffer from the crippling need to be universally loved. They have the guts to make unpopular decisions – including the guts to fire non-performers.

I have known mean whom nobody could lead.

The average profit in agencies is less than 1 per cent after taxes. Size and profit are not the same thing.

Five tips:

Never allow two people to do a job which one could do.
Never summon people to your office; it frightens them. See them in their office.
If you want to get action, communicate verbally.
It is bad manners to use products which compete with your clients’ product.
Never allow yourself the luxury of writing letters of complaint.

How to get clients

At the meeting when you make your presentation, above all, listen. Tell your client weak points, before he notices them. Don’t use too much research numbers and case studies, they put prospect to sleep.

The American Telephone Company, General Motors and Exxon have employed the same agency for more than 70 years.

Creativity is not a function of size. Small can be beautiful.

Open letter to a client in search of an agency

Once a year give your agency a formal report on its performance. This will serve as an early warning of trouble which, if ignored, could end badly for all concerned.

Wanted: a renaissance in print advertising

On the average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy. I advise you to include the brand name in your headline.

When you put your headline in quotes, you increase recall by an average of 28 per cent.

Queen Victoria complained that Gladstone talked to her as if he were addressing a public meeting. She preferred Disraeli, who talked to her like a human being. When you write copy, follow Disraeli’s example.

It pays to write short sentences and short paragraphs, and to avoid difficult words. I advise you to avoid analogies. Use everyday language.

Always try to include the price of your product.

If you want your long copy to be read, you had better write it well. In particular, your first paragraph should be a grabber.

Don’t use capital letters.

Set key paragraphs in bold face or italic.

Limit your opening paragraph to a maximum of 11 words.

How to make TV commercials that sell

Ten kinds of commercial that are above average in their ability to change people’s brand preference and three that are bellow.

Above average:

Humor.
Slice of life.
Testimonial.
Demonstration.
Problem solution.
Talking heads.
Characters.
Reason why.
News.
Emotion.

Below average:

Testimonials by celebrities.
Cartons.
Musical vignettes.

Sixteen tips:

Brand identification.
Show the package.
Food in motion.
Close-ups.
Open with the fire.
When you have nothing to say, sing it.
Sound effects.
Voice-over or on-camera.
Supers.
Avoid visual banality.
Changes of scene.
Mnemonics.
Show the product in use.
Everything is possible on TV.
Miscomprehension.
The great scandal.

Advertising corporations

Corporate campaigns seldom have more than one supporter – CEO.

Many corporate campaigns fail because they are underfunded.

Advertising whose purpose is to influence public opinion is more likely to be successful if it follows these principles:

If the issue is complicated, and it almost always is, simplify it as much as you reasonably can.
Present your case in terms of the reader’s self-interest.
Disarm with candor.
Give both sides of the issue.
Know who your target is.

How to advertise foreign travel

When you undertake to advertise a foreign country, you have to be prepared for a lot of political flak.

People dream about visiting foreign countries. The job of your advertising is to convert their dream into action. This can best be done by combining mouth-watering photographs with specific how-to-do-it information.

The secrets of success in business-to-business advertising

In industrial companies there are an average of four ‘buying influences’. Your sales force is unlikely to know all four.

Advertising can promise the reader: a benefit, news, testimonials and helpful information.

Make sure that what you promise is important to your customer. Make your promise specific.

Testimonials work well, as long as they come from experts in reputable companies.

Many industrial product are thought to be little more than commodities, with no apparent differences between them.

Close your body copy with your offer, your address and phone number.

Analyze your inquiries and the action they produce.

Direct mail, my first love and secret weapon

In direct mail, testing is the name of the game. Only test one variable at a time.

The price you ask and the term of payment you offer are critical, and they can be tested by sample mailings.

In the print advertisement, your headline is the most important element. Long copy sells more than short copy.

Winston Churchill said, ‘Short words are best, and the old words when short are best of all.’

In TV you need at least two minutes. Allow 20 seconds to give information of how to order.

Advertising for good causes

It is rare for any advertisement, however powerful, to bring in enough direct contributions to pay the cost of the space.

Competing with P&G

P&G is disciplined.

They never enter small categories unless they expect them to grow, and they set out to dominate every category they enter.

They often enter more than one brand in the category. They allow brands to compete between each others.

They create good products.

Their test-marketing is unbelievably thorough. They would rather be right than first.

They always promise the consumer one important benefit.

They believe that the first duty of advertising is to communicate effectively, not be original or entertaining.

Their Achilles’ heel is their consistency. They are always predictable.

18 miracles of research

Advertising people who ignore research are dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.

Research can help you define your target audience. It can help you decide the optimum positioning. It can find out what factors are most important in the purchase decision and what vocabulary consumers use. It can determine the most persuasive promise.

Nobody has been able to demonstrate a relationship between recall and sales.

Research can settle arguments.

Respondents do not always tell the truth to interviewers.

What little I know about marketing

Some models of consumer behavior: Lavidge and Steiner, Andreason, Nicosia, Engel-Kollat-Blackwell, Howard and Sheth, and Vaughan.

35 percent of supermarket sales come from products which did not exist ten years ago. You can judge the vitality of a company by the number of new products it brings to market.

Most marketers spend too much time worrying about how to revive products which are in trouble, and too little time worrying about how to make successful products even more successful.

I have come to regard advertising as part of the product, to be treated as a production cost, not a selling cost.

Advertising is still the cheapest form of selling.

I once heard Marvin Bower define marketing as objectivity, I cannot beat that.

Is America still top nation

British commercials tend to be less direct, less competitive, more subtle, more nostalgic, funnier and more entertaining.

Multinational corporations often wish to use the same advertising campaigns throughout the world, but the managers of their local subsidiaries press their prerogative to commission their own campaigns.

There is very little advertising in India – 37 cents per head per annum, compared with 224 USD in the US and 77 USD in Japan.

Until 1977 advertising in China was considered evil, so there wasn’t any. But in 1978 the government endorsed its use.

Advertising is still growing in US, but it is growing faster in the rest of the world.

Lasker, Resor, Rubicam, Burnett, Hopkins and Bernbach – six giants who invented modern advertising

All six had other jobs before they went into advertising. At least five were gluttons for work, and uncompromising perfectionists. Four made their reputations as copywriters. Only three had university degrees.

Albert Lasker (1880-1952). He made more money than anyone in the history of advertising business. He ran Lord & Thomas as a dictatorship. He hired able men, pay them well and trained them well.

Stanley Resor (1879-1962). He was austere, dignified, cultured, beautifully mannered and rather donnish. He was a head of J. Walter Thompson. He believed in research. He regarded copywriters as idiots (still being married to one). He was the first to start a network of offices outside US. For GM.

Raymond Rubicam (1892-1972). He was patron of David. He was the most outspoken man. He was the first to make research part of the creative process by bringing in Dr. Gallup. Young & Rubicam were successful mainly due to General Foods being their biggest client.

Leo Burnett (1891-1971). He was short. He started agency in Chicago in 1935. He was the leader of the ‘Chicago school’ of advertising. His attitude to the creative process: there is inherent drama in every product, reach for the stars and you will not get mud on your hands, step yourself in your subject and work like hell. His greatest moment was Marlboro commercial.

Claude C. Hopkins (1867-1932). He was hard worker. He invented new ways to force distribution for new products. He invented test marketing. He invented sampling by coupon.

Bill Bernbach (1911-1982). He was an irresistible salesman. His best campaigns Volvo and Avis. He said that creative man with an insight into human nature, with the artistry to touch and move people, will succeed.