Ogilvy on Advertising

Let’s say you are a manufacturer. Your advertising isn’t working and your sales are going down. And everything depends on it. Your future depends on it, your family’s future depends on it, other people’s families depend on it. And you walk in this office and talk to me, and you sit in that chair. Now, what do you want out of me? Fine writing? Do you want masterpieces? Do you want glowing things that can be framed by copywriters? Or do you want to see the goddamned sales curve stop moving down and start moving up?’3

of his observations was that photographs with an element of ‘story appeal’ were far above average in attracting attention. This led me to put an eye-patch on the model in my advertisements for Hathaway shirts.

Leo Burnett said it better, ‘When you reach for the stars, you may not quite get one, but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.’

If you are lucky enough to write a good advertisement, repeat it until it stops selling.

Every time I have written a bad campaign, it has been because the product did not interest me.

I have news for you: there are no dull products, only dull writers.

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?

Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night.

Give people a taste of Old Crow, and tell them it’s Old Crow. Then give them another taste of Old Crow, but tell them it’s Jack Daniel’s. Ask them which they prefer. They’ll think the two drinks are quite different. They are tasting images.

It isn’t the whiskey they choose, it’s the image. The brand image is 90 per cent of what the distiller has to sell.