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“It is a mistake to use highfalutin language when you advertise to uneducated people. I once used the word obsolete in a headline, only to discover that 43% of the housewives had no idea what it meant. In another headline, I used the word ineffable, only to discover that I didn’t know what it meant myself.”- David Ogilvy
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As I do on many Sunday’s is visit a local used books store……and on every occasion I find exactly what I need. One of the books I was so fortunate to find was David Ogilvy’s Ogilvy on Advertising. The flow of the book was second to none as well as his insights on the advertising industry past, “present” and predictions of the future.
What I would like to share with you are some exerts from his book that I found quite valuable.
Mr. Ogilvy states 5 parameters to know if you have a great ad.
It will help you recognize a big idea if you ask yourself five questions:
1. Did it make me gasp when I first saw it?
2. Do I wish I had thought of it myself?
3. Is it unique?
4. Does it fit the strategy to perfection?
5. Could it be used for 30 years?
Mr. Ogilvy has a ritual when he appoints a new member to his head offices that I found quite amusing & thought provoking.
-”When you are appointed to head an office in the Ogilvy & Mather chain, I send you one of these Russian dolls. Inside the smallest you will find this message: ‘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 than we are, Ogilvy & Mather will become a company of giants.’”
Mr. Ogilvy quote on profit and service:
-’If your service is too generous, your clients will love you, but you will go broke.’
One of Mr. Ogilvy’s favorite headlines:
For a pile remedy: -‘Send us your dollar and we’ll cure your piles, or keep your dollar and keep your piles.’
Mr. Ogilvy on creating an advertisement for traveling:
-”People dream about visiting foreign countries. The job of advertising is to convert their dreams into action. This can best be done by combining mouth-watering photographs with specific how-to-do-it information.”
Mr. Ogilvy view on marketing in a recession:
-”What should you do in times of recession, when you need every penny to sustain your earnings? Stop advertising?”
-”If you stop advertising a brand which is still in its introductory phase, you will probably kill it-for ever. Studies of the last six recessions have demonstrated that companies which do not cut their adverting budgets achieve greater increase in profit than companies which do cut back.”
Mr. Ogilvy book recommendation:
Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins. -”Nobody should be allowed to have anything to do with advertising until he has read this book seven times. It changed the course of my life.”-David Ogilvy
Well I hope you enjoyed the exerts that I choses here is a link to David Ogilvy’s, Ogilvy on Advertising
Have a good one! B
Posted by Blair · Leave a Comment
“If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.”- David Ogilvy