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Book Review: Ogilvy on Advertising

Written by: Jay Hamilton-Roth

Article Overview: David Ogilvy (the creative head of Ogilvy & Mather) describes in plain language in his classic book what it takes to create great advertising and lead an organization. He also includes lots of advertisements that work – with a description of why they were effective.

Book Review: Ogilvy on Advertising

“Pretend you started work this morning in my agency, and that you have dropped by my office to ask for advice. I will start with some generalities about how to go about your work. In later chapters I will give you more specific advice on producing advertisements for magazines, newspapers, television and radio. I ask you to forgive me for oversimplifying some complicated subjects, and for the dogmatism of my style – the dogmatism of brevity. We are both in a hurry.” So begins David Ogilvy (the creative head of Ogilvy & Mather) in his classic book, describing in plain language what it takes to create great advertising and lead an organization. He also includes lots of advertisements that work – with a description of why they were effective.

In chapter 2, he provides the following key advertising points:

• It doesn’t always work. The wrong advertising can reduce the sales of products.
• Do your homework. Read everything you can about your client’s product with an eye toward what promise would most likely make someone buy their brand.
• Position your product. Make it clear who the product is for and what it does.
• Brand image, which is comprised of name, packaging, price, style of advertising, and the nature of the product.
• The big idea. Big ideas make products stand out and be remembered and are truly rare. Nowadays people hope that outrageousness will suffice for “big idea” (think Superbowl advertisement). Instead, here are 5 questions to ask:
  • Did it make me gasp when I first saw it?
  • Do I wish I had thought of it myself?
  • Is it unique?
  • Does it fit the strategy to perfection?
  • Could it be used for 30 years?

• Make the product the hero. You want the advertising copy to clearly solve the audience’s problem (”save the day”).
• The positively good. You don’t have position your product as superior to your competition. If the consumer feels certain yours is good and uncertain your competitors is, they will often buy yours to be safe.
• Repeat your winners. Just because you’re tired of an advertisement, doesn’t mean your audience is. Make your choices based on data, not feelings.
• Learn from direct response. Since direct response writers focus on what works in writing copy, do what they do (unless you have a proven solution that’s better): longer commercials, broadcast late at night, and use long copy. The best advertisements sell the most.
• The cult of creativity. If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative. Don’t strive for originality at the expense of what works.

In chapter 7 he gives details of what works in print advertising:

• Start with a great headline. Include the brand name. Ten or fewer words. Make it contain news (something new about the product). Make it specific (more memorable). Put it in “quotes” to increase recall by 28 percent. If you advertise locally, put the name of the city in the headline. Make it obvious – don’t use double meanings to be clever.
• Photographs produce better results than illustrations (but photographs don’t always reproduce well). Make the image arouse the reader’s curiosity. Show the end result of using the product. The most common effective imagery? Cute babies, cute animals, and sex appeal. The gender of the person in the ad should be the same as the target market (people want to identify with the image). His two favorite layouts: a large photograph (3/4 of the ad) with a brief headline and up to 240 words of copy and a narrow photograph (1/4 of the ad) with a longer headline (up to 20 words), a subheading, and 600 words of copy.

If you’re looking for ideas for your own advertising or marketing, have a copy of this book at-hand to inspire you.

Related Articles
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  Lesson #1: Creative Brilliance is the Bridge to Success

Article Tags: advertisements, amp, big idea, brand image, brevity, creative head, david ogilvy, dogmatism, generalities, great advertising, hero, homework, hurry, li li, mather, nature of the product, newspapers, plain language, superbowl, ul



Related Forum Posts
Top 19 Copywriting books - 1. Ogilvy on Advertising. David Ogilvy. Wiley. 2. Positioning: The Battle for your Mind. Al Ries and Jack Trout. Warner. 3. The New Positioning. Jack Trout. McGraw-Hill. 4. Tested Advertising Methods. John Caples. Prentice-Hall. 5. How to Make your Advertising Make Money. John Caples. Prentice-Hall. 6. Guerrilla Advertising. Jay Conrad Levinson. Houghton Mifflin. 7. Direct Mail Copy that Sells. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall. 8. Sales Letters that Sizzle. Herschell Gordon Lewis. NTC Business Books. 9. Herschell Gordon Lewis on the Art of Writing Copy. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall. 10. Romancing the Brand. David Martin. American Management Association. 11. The Art of Writing Advertising: Conversations with William Bernbach, Leo Burnett, George Gribbin, David Ogilvy, Rosser Reeves. NTC Business Books. 12. Confessions of an Advertising Man. David Ogilvy. NTC Business Books. 13. My Life in Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books. 14. Scientific Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books. 15. How to Become an Advertising Man. James Webb Young. NTC Business Books. 16. The Lasker Story as He Told It. NTC Business Books. 17. Advertising Concept and Copy. George Felton. Prentice Hall. 18. The Copy WorkShop Workbook. Bruce Bendinger. The Copy Workshop. 19. Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Ads. Luke Sullivan. Wiley. This should keep you busy for at least a year. Enjoy!
Re: Top 50 Lists - Hi Evan, How about "Top 50": -Inventor Blogs To Watch -Franchising Blogs To Watch -Business Book Review Blogs -Women Entrepreneur Blogs -Young Entrepreneur Blogs
My reading log - Hi OmnivoreInk, Before starting my business, I read the following books as research: -"The Art of the Start" by Guy Kawasaki -"The AdSense Code" by Joel Comm -"Don't Think Pink" and "Mind Your X's and Y's" by Lisa Johnson And since then I've continued my "research" by reading (in this order): -"Technical Tennis" by Rod Cross -"For One More Day" by Mitch Albom -"The Twits" by Roald Dahl -"Little Black Book of Connections" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne -"The Profitable Retailer" by Doug Fleener -"Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell -"Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" by C.S. Lewis -"Little Green Book of Getting Your Way" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling And I'm currently reading and am in the process of finishing the following: -"There's No Such Thing as Public Speaking" by Jeanette and Roy Henderson -"The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell -"The Book of Tells" by Peter Collett -"Little Red Book of Sales Answers" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"Chocolates on the Pillow Aren't Enough: Reinventing The Customer Experience" by Jonathan M. Tisch -"The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity" by Julia Cameron -"The Inner Game of Tennis" by Timothy Gallwey
Re: Significance of Review Sites - Exactly! Review sites are very helpful for providing better understanding to a product or service.
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.


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