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Ogilvy on Advertising

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A candid and indispensable primer on all aspects of advertising from the man  Time  has called "the most sought after wizard in the business."

Told with brutal candor and prodigal generosity, David Ogilvy

• How to get a job in advertising
• How to choose an agency for your product
• The secrets behind advertising that works
• How to write successful copy—and get people to read it
• Eighteen miracles of research
• What advertising can do for charities

And much, much more.

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

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About the author

David Ogilvy

54 books311 followers
David Mackenzie Ogilvy was born in West Horsley, England, on June 23, 1911. He was educated at Fettes College in Edinburgh and at Christ Church, Oxford (although he didn't graduate).
david ogilvy After Oxford, Ogilvy went to Paris, where he worked in the kitchen of the Hotel Majestic. He learned discipline, management - and when to move on: "If I stayed at the Majestic I would have faced years of slave wages, fiendish pressure, and perpetual exhaustion." He returned to England to sell cooking stoves, door-to-door.
Ogilvy's career with Aga Cookers was astonishing. He sold stoves to nuns, drunkards, and everyone in between. In 1935 he wrote a guide for Aga salesmen (Fortune magazine called it "probably the best sales manual ever written"). Among its suggestions, "The more prospects you talk to, the more sales you expose yourself to, the more orders you will get. But never mistake quantity of calls for quality of salesmanship."

In 1938, Ogilvy emigrated to the United States, where he went to work for George Gallup's Audience Research Institute in New Jersey. Ogilvy cites Gallup as one of the major influences on his thinking, emphasizing meticulous research methods and adherence to reality...

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 467 reviews
Profile Image for Trang Ngo.
125 reviews67 followers
December 8, 2014
What I have learnt from Ogilvy on Advertising

- black letter on white background!!! the reverse does not work

- do research on what the audience wants to see, do not just base on your preference

- if it does not sell, it isn’t creative

- order of print ad: picture, headlines, subheadlines, words (that’s what the audience's mind wants)

- there are many advertising agencies because one can not work for its clients’ competitors

- long-term contract with clients is crucial to the business

- keep track of the sales after the advertisement is carried out

- headlines are important, very important!!

- use colors, costs more but attracts more

- long copy is better than short because research showed that long attracts more readership

- if an advertisement works, keep it for long

- read to expand your knowledge

- be a good psychologist

- hire people who are better than you are

- research research research

- advertising which promises no benefit to the consumer does not sell, yet the majority of campaigns contain no promise whatsoever

- try to find a promise which is not only persuasive but also unique

- advertising is production cost, not selling cost

- in advertising, the beginning of greatness is to be different, and the beginning of failure is to be the same

- do not write in capital letter
115 reviews28 followers
September 12, 2012
I've had this book in my shelves for a couple years and finally sat down to begin reading it recently. And I'm so, so, soooo mad at myself because I wish I had read this immediately when I first picked it up!

Although it was written decades ago and contains information that will be construed as outdated (especially since the look of advertising has definitely changed substantially), a lot of it is still sound and relevant. I don't work in advertising, but I was thinking of a ton of areas where the information would be applicable for myself - from marketing materials to interaction design and even just basic career/work advice.

Also, I'm sure it could be said for a lot of books written over the years, but I found that the essentials of his advice and thoughts throughout the book have been echoed and repeated in tons of blog posts and articles I've read for the last few years. There seem to be very common themes about design and work that will always be relevant to designers/creatives. He was a proponent of research, research, research in design. He believed in using theories/frameworks that worked continually and improving on them. The power of truly good copy. Great stuff.
Profile Image for Lubinka Dimitrova.
258 reviews160 followers
March 10, 2019
Quite an insightful and utterly engrossing read, although it would have been even more interesting if we could read his opinions about the current state of advertising. I enjoyed his writing a lot, and his main points still hold up well. Sadly, his prediction about giant billboards and deception in political advertisement becoming obsolete was very, very wrong...

Thank goodness I had previously read Simon Garfield's Just My Type, otherwise I would have never been able to appreciate why sans serifs are no good in advertising (with which I intuitively totally agree). Ogilvy is delightful, his book is much more intriguing than many works of fiction.

Любов, благодаря за индиректната препоръка! :D
Profile Image for Габриела Манова.
Author 2 books119 followers
June 20, 2016
Тази книга ми е повод за гордост откъм редакция, не само защото е ценна и интересна, а и защото ни я връщаха толкова пъти. Което оценявам, понеже вече е близо до съвършенство. Много хора стоят зад тази любопитна и занимателна рекламна библия, радвам се, че и аз съм сред тях.
Дейвид Огилви е бащата на едни от най-популярните реклами, които познаваме. Беше адски интересно да надникна в неговия свят и то от неговата перспектива. И така обичам, когато авторът е откровен и автентичен. Тук Огилви наистина не се преструва, макар че може би уменията му да рекламира се прилепват и към писането му. Може би затова е толкова убедителен. Но страхотна книга, наистина. А рядко ме впечатлява нехудожествена литература.
Очаквайте съвсем скоро от издателство „Изток-запад“.
Profile Image for Erika.
73 reviews14 followers
March 28, 2017
Ogilvy is brilliant. Even with the advent of the internet, the core of advertising remains the same because basic human motives remain the same, and what he has to say is still very relevant.

While the rest of the book is packed with time-honored strategies and tips, his talent is especially evident in the chapter dedicated to past advertising giants.

This might seem like a fluff chapter to those people just looking to absorb facts, but it is far more valuable – he is showing you how to communicate effectively in words (in much the same way his highlighted advertisements do).

He is demonstrating the insight that makes him a great storyteller – and thus a great advertiser. Advertisers have to communicate all of the things that an artist, a writer, or a composer must – character, mood, setting, and yes, even plot. They are providing you with snapshots. Your mind fills in the parts of the story that happen before or after (this future-thinking is typically of what life will be like after obtaining the thing being advertised).

His characterizations in particular are magnificent – vivid and succinct. An excerpt:

“He was a shy, mousy little man and spoke with a strong lisp. His nickname was Thee-Thee, that being the way he pronounced his initials C.C. But he was a good raconteur and after-dinner speaker. He always wore a fuchsia in his buttonhole, chewed licorice root, and spat profusely on the person he was talking to.”

At the end of this chapter, I had clear images in my head of each and every one of the people listed, and I thoroughly bought what he was selling – these were great men. Given that all six of them seem to be older, white gentlemen in the same business, how difficult must that have been?

Did I mention that this book is incredibly easy to read, is blocked well, contains several interesting visual accompaniments, and is a page-turner?

Very enjoyable book. I highly recommend it.
Profile Image for Pegah.
44 reviews1 follower
December 6, 2018
اول: درباره محصولی که میخواهید درباره آن پیام بازرگانی بسازید، مطالعه کنید. هرچه بیشتر درباره آن بدانید، احتمال بیشتری هست که اندیشه کارساز و بزرگی برای فروش آن در ذهنتان برسد.
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دوم:بفهمید رقبای شما برای محصولات مشابه چه نوع تبلیغاتی و البته با چه میزان موفقیتی انجام داده اند. این کار، طاقت و شکیبایی شما را افزایش می دهد.
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سوم: نوبت به تحقیق در میان مصرف کنندگان می رسد. آگاه شوید که آنها درباره محصولات شما چگونه فکر می کنند، وقتی درباره ی محصولات صحبت می کنند از چه
لحنی استفاده می کنند، چه ویژگی هایی برای آنها حائز اهمیت است و چه قولی آنها رارا با بیترین احتمال، به خرید از شما ترغیب می کند.
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هر تبلیغی باید به عنوان سهمی از تصویر نام تجاری انگاشته شود. به تعبیر دیگر، تبلیغات شما باید مستمرن و سال به سال همان تصویر را به نمایش بگذارد.
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برای اعطای تصویری با کیفیت به محصول، باید هزینه کرد، درست مثل بلیت درجه یک
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از قول لئو برنت: « در هر محصولی یک نمایشنامه و درام خاص وجود دارد. وظیفه ما این است که آن را بیابیم و بر روی آن سرمایه گذاری کنیم.
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نکات مثبت محصول را برجسته تر و جذابتر از رقبایتان تشریح و آن ها را با نوع تبلیغات از هم متمایز کنید. این همان « ارزش افزوده» ای است که تبلیغات به ارمغان می آورد
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تحقیقات نشان می دهد که میزان خواننده ی یک آگهی وقتی برای دفعات متوالی در یک مجله چاپ می شود کاهش نمی یابد. میزان خوانندگان، حداقل در چهار بار تکرار، همان سطح باقی می ماند.
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خوانندگان ، اول به تصویر نگاه می کنند، بعد تیتر، بعد متن.
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بطور متوسط، تیترهای زیر تصویر ده درصد بیشتر از تیترهای بالای تصویر خوانده می شوند.
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معاملات با قیمت پایین و دیگر راه های سطحی برای افزایش فروش،بسیار مورد علاقه ی مدیران فروش است، اما اثر آنها زودگذر است.
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آنچه که خواندید بخشی هایی ازکتاب رازهای تبلیغات بود
دیوید اُگیلوی چهره برجسته در عرصه تبلیغات در آمریکا بود که شرکت خود را بنام اُگیلوی و مآثر تاسیس نمود که چندین شعبه در سراسر جهان دارد. اُگیلوی کارش را به عنوان فروشنده ی اجاق گاز به تک تک منازل در اسکاتلند آغاز نمود و سپس با ورود به دنیای تبلیغات یکی از برجسته ترین و تاثیرگذارترین افراد این حوزه گردید. تبلیغات مرسدس بنز، گینس، رولزرویس و بسیاری دیگر را در کارنامه خود دارد.

شاد و برقرار باشید
111 reviews4 followers
October 31, 2017
I am not in an advertising business, and read this book out of curiosity. It changed my view on what advertising is.

Key ideas:

 The purpose of advertising is to sell. Advertising can be called “Sales in print”.
 The most creative advertisement is not necessarily the most effective one.
 The more you know the product the more there is a chance that you will come up with a big idea
 Advertising can be considered
 People don’t buy commodities, they buy images (Jack Daniels – is it really better than other whiskey?)
 Brand is 90% what a distiller has to sell
 If you and your competitor both make excellent products, don’t imply that you are better
 Reuse good advertisement, until it is not effective anymore. If it was effective a year ago, it will be this year
 Don’t try to be original
 Make it fun to work. Get rid of sad people
 Hire people, who are better than you are
 Make conflicts transparent. Face to face. No talking behind anyone’s back
 People do their best work in a happy atmosphere
 Show people what they want to see
 Make specific promises, avoid generalities
 The best companies differentiate themselves
 Correlation between quality and price is almost 0. It is all about brand
 Advertising is a cheap form of selling. With 1 TV commercial you reach millions of people
 Bill boards will disappear



Profile Image for Emily .
829 reviews93 followers
March 10, 2020
I almost didn't read this book because I thought it would be too dated - but for a book that's 35 years old, there's a lot of information that has held up well (and a lot that didn't lol).

Obviously there was no internet, no social media, no personal computers, no smartphones, no satellite radio or streaming services in the early 80s - so advertising has changed a good deal, but a lot of the principles are the same.

A few things I wrote down for myself out of this book:
Ogilvy used to nested Russian dolls to his high-level managers with a note that said
If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarves, but if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we become a company of giants

Perfectionism is spelled paralysis - Churchill

If it doesn't sell - it isn't creative


I also liked the section about that discussed that being creative doesn't mean you have to be original

Oh, and I enjoyed the mini-bios of some of the men that formed the largest ad agencies in the world.

Time to go rewatch all the episodes of Mad Men now...
Profile Image for Magdalena.
149 reviews87 followers
November 10, 2021
3 заради дистанцията на времето, без да пренебрегвам гениалността на Огилви. Страшно много харесвам отношението му към рекламата като информативно средство, което работи за аудиторията си. А не непременно креативно чудо, заради егото на копирайтъра. (:
Съветите за копирайта според мен си остават актуални, особено в частта колко много трябва да четеш, за да станеш добър.
January 23, 2022
“идею вообще нельзя назвать великой до тех пор, пока она не доказала свою действенность в течение как минимум тридцати лет.”

Весьма занимательная книга о том, что основные задачи рекламы почти любого бренда можно решить уни��ерсально действующими рекламными приемами, которые себя оправдывают уже 30+ лет. Конечно же, есть много новых способов привлечения внимания, которые помогают откусить свою долю рынка, но они основаны на базовых принципах, которые работали и в прошлом столетии.

Особенно интересно читать главы, которые описывают внутреннюю «кухню» рекламных агентств, если ты работал в одном из подобных международных компаниях. На протяжении долгих лет ничего не изменилось:

“— Чем вы занимаетесь?
— Я инженер. А вы?
— Я менеджер проекта в рекламном агентстве.
— Вы пишете рекламные тексты?
— Нет, это делают копирайтеры.
— Да, у вас хорошая работа.
— Но не такая уж легкая. Мы проводим массу исследований.
— Вы сами проводите исследования?
— Нет, у нас для этого есть штат аналитиков.
— Значит, вы ищете новых клиентов?— Нет, это не моя задача.
— Простите, но чем же занимаетесь вы сами?
— Маркетингом.
— Вы занимаетесь маркетингом для ваших клиентов?
— Нет, они делают это сами.
— Но вы — руководитель?
— Нет, но скоро буду.”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
1 review
September 7, 2018
Well he's definitely a salesperson, I'll give you that.

One afternoon my friend asked me to source for her a book on advertising called On Advertising. I found the book for her and on a whim (attracted by the beautiful pictures in the first few pages, good one David) bought a copy for myself.

Now I'm no student or fan of marketing or advertising or copywriting. In fact, my stance before this book, on people who worked with marketing, was positively negative. I thought that they were a whole bunch of immoral people duping everyone in to mass consumption, cashing on the insecurities of the public, and convincing people they needed stuff they didn't.

Yet, I liked the way David wrote. It was honest, casual, and it seemed like he agreed with me on poseurs too (would you rather hear a popular artist on the radio or a shakespeare play?). So based on vanity (read: I like how David agrees with me on a few points), and a liking for shiny stuff (read: wow, look at those photographs) I began reading it.

What I read changed my opinion on marketing completely. I was persuaded, sold, convinced, converted. However you put it. David's description of marketing, the literature involved in it, the research behind it, the psychology at play (in other words, the parts that made me abhor marketing when I was uninformed, curiously made me like it now that I was slightly informed.) made me find it to be a highly catching read. I finished it in one go, something I hadn't done in a while, and certainly not for a random book.

I know why I liked it. David made copy writers seem like authors, writers. (Huxley was a copywriter too he pointed out subtly). He elevated the occupation, pointing out subtly that excellence and success exist in marketing too. (Look at my beautiful castle, clearly I'm rich and have made some right decisions, he seemingly points out on one of the pages which has a photograph of a castle.)

He highlighted beautiful ads, and for the first time made me look at them not as things directed to dupe me, but as projects by people like me, who wanted to create something beautiful and impacting. He emphasised at how editorial everything was, how not baseless it was, how well researched (the good ones atleast) it was, how aesthetic, how well thought out. Everytime he mentioned Dove, I had to admit that I remembered the damn advertisements, I knew the catch line.

Funny thing, I think he sold marketing to people who were not sold on it before.

Now everytime I see an ad I will find myself analysing it, checking its merits, and maybe even buying the product to show my appreciation to the copywriter. It is all very strange. But mind you, this does not mean that ALL adverts have any merit.
17 reviews
November 2, 2007
If you want to have ANYTHING to do with advertising, you must read this book. If you want to have ANYTHING to do with graphic design, you must have something to do with advertising...
Profile Image for Bader Al-Abri.
62 reviews18 followers
August 1, 2020
كتاب رائع بقلم ديفيد أوجيلفي (أبو الإعلانات) وعن نظرته ونصائحه فيما يخص الإعلانات وكذلك تجاربه في هذا المجال.
Profile Image for Hestia Istiviani.
934 reviews1,717 followers
May 16, 2023
Anak ahensi kayaknya udah nggak asing lagi dengan nama Ogilvy. Sampai sekarang, kalau kerja di Ogilvy & Mather rasanya punya prestis sendiri. Aku pribadi belum tertarik buat nyemplung ke dunia periklanan sebab selama ini masih asik (sendiri) di bidang Marketing & Sales. Tapi itu bukan berarti aku nggak perlu buka wawasan.

Baca Ogilvy on Advertising cuma karena pengin tahu dan pengin belajar. Ternyata malah dapat yang lebih. Cerita tentang usaha David Ogilvy bisa sampai sebesar sekarang paling cuma 20%. Sisanya adalah "ajaran" yang telah ia praktikkan bertahun-tahun dan sekiranya masih bisa diterapkan pada zaman sekarang.

Aku cukup takjub bagaimana buku ini lumayan detil dalam menjelaskan sesuatu. Misalnya saja, ada bab khusus tentang bikin iklan untuk televisi, bikin iklan untuk media cetak, bagaimana menggaet klien, bagaimana mengerjakan permintaan klien dari luar negeri. Saking lubernya, aku mengira kalau buku ini semacam handbook (atau guidebook malah ya?) buat mereka yang kerja di Ogilvy & Mather.

Pertama kali terbit tahun 80an dan akhirnya dicetak ulang pada 2023 ini. Sebelum pendahuluan, ada catatan bahwa ada revisi minor untuk menyesuaikan pada konteks kekinian. Dan setelah aku baca sampai habis, rasanya memang apa yang dituangkan oleh David Ogilvy masih bisa dieksplorasi pada zaman sekarang.

Hal yang kusuka, Ogilvy nggak kebanyakan cerita yang nggak penting. Dia lebih banyak main bullet points dan subbab pendek. Buku ini juga nggak pakai banyak istilah teknis yang rumit.

Selain penjelasan, tips & trik, strategi, dan taktik, buku ini juga dilengkapi dengan contoh copy iklan yang pernah mereka kerjakan. Sayangnya, karena buku hitam putih, jadilah yang kelihatan cuma headlines aja.

Buatku, buku ini memberi pengetahuan baru. Minimal sebagai modal meminimalisir pertengkaran (kecil) antara anak Marketing dengan anak Copy hehe.
Profile Image for Cris  Morales.
170 reviews14 followers
April 12, 2016
I´m much more keen on propaganda than advertising nowadays. However, I enjoyed re-reading this book a lot. I had read this years ago for an introductory class on advertising. It´s required reading for any publicist since it develops fundamental concepts about the trade that David learned through experience and research.

The chapter on ´Competing with Procter & Gamble´ and the description of their methods was my favorite.

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The 道 of ethics in advertising.

"If you and your competitors all make excellent products, don´t try to imply that your product is better. Just say what´s good about your product - and do a clearer, more honest, more informative job of saying it... This approach to advertising parity products does not insult the intelligence of consumers. Who can blame you for putting your best foot forward?"

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Is this David´s?



The aesthetics of it reminded me of this scene of Pierrot le Fou (1965) Directed by Jean-Luc Godard: https://youtu.be/bZ5c3EY-lyQ

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"Advertising which promises no benefit to the consumer does not sell, yet the majority of campaigns contain no promise whatever.(That is the most important sentence in this book. Read it again.)"

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I watched several of the author´s interviews while reading this and he kept reminding me of Alan Watt´s lectures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4jBd...

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Profile Image for Stephanie H.
245 reviews10 followers
November 25, 2010
If you've ever been interested in working at an ad agency, if you've ever worked at an ad agency, or if you ever had a strong affinity for the Mastercard Priceless (McCann Erickson) or the Got Milk campaign (Goodby Silverstein), you must read this book. Not only does David Ogilvy give great advice from inside the business, but he presents his wonderfully written copy with the best parts of a vintage Life magazine (the pictures). Ogilvy clearly states the best steps for breaking into the business, the best steps for business owners and how to advertise for various print and TV (however, this book was written in 1983 and lacks the most recent innovation of the internet).

Although Ogilvy makes his points clearly, there is a lot of repetition (specifically in the B2B chapter when compared to earlier sections). He consistently reinforces exactly how much he despises reverse type, the importance of newspaper layouts and the importance of truthful, purposeful copy. Yet he makes several confessions about his years in the business that prove that even the most amazing individuals are still human. Even David Ogilvy, the man who drove to work in his Roles Royce wearing his Sears suit, can still make ill informed decisions.

Recommended for everyone who has ever studied advertising, and even for those who enjoy catchy slogans and pretty pictures.
Profile Image for Erin Bomboy.
Author 3 books25 followers
July 10, 2020
Ogilvy on Advertising was published in the '80s, and it shows its age. This is because legendary ad-man David Ogilvy has predictions and opinions, most of which did not and will not ever come to pass. Apparently, print advertising is going to make a comeback, and people love reading long tracts of text. Most of the ads he references (whether by him or other firms) are hilariously out-of-date, and as you can imagine, they depict a world populated solely by white, cisgender, wealthy people. He's a little sexist (women make good managers because they're naturally inclined to babysit egos) and more than a little xenophobic when discussing advertising around the world. I will say he strives for broadmindedness at times although he can't escape being a relic in the 21st century.

Even still, Ogilvy shares some timeless pieces of advice that transcend Madison Avenue. He discusses positioning, engaging the creative brain (stuff it full of information and then turn off your mind), and how people select a brand to reflect their personality. It's not Mad Men, but it's an entertaining look into the world of Madison Avenue.
Profile Image for Shamail Aijaz.
59 reviews24 followers
October 27, 2020
The best book for everyone who belongs to Advertising Agencies or related field.
Read it as Bible of Advertising which covers almost all the departments from copy to designing to marketing and finance as well.

TAKE AWAYS
When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative.’ I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product.

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

You don’t stand a tinker’s chance of producing successful advertising unless you start by doing your homework.

You now have to decide what ‘image’ you want for your brand. Image means personality. Products, like people, have personalities, and they can make or break them in the market place. The personality of a product is an amalgam of many things – its name, its packaging, its price, the style of its advertising, and, above all, the nature of the product itself

You can do homework from now until doomsday, but you will never win fame and fortune unless you also invent big ideas. It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night.

Big ideas come from the unconscious. This is true in art, in science and in advertising. But your unconscious has to be well informed, or your idea will be irrelevant. Stuff your conscious mind with information, then unhook your rational thought process. You can help this process by going for a long walk, or taking a hot bath, or drinking half a pint of claret. Suddenly, if the telephone line from your unconscious is open, a big idea wells up within you.

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?

‘If you and your competitors all make excellent products, don’t try to imply that your product is better. Just say what’s good about your product – and do a clearer, more honest, more informative job of saying it.

You aren’t advertising to a standing army; you are advertising to a moving parade.

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.’

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?

‘if it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.’

Always tell your client what you would do if you were in his shoes, but don’t grudge him the prerogative of deciding what advertising to run. It is his product, his money, and ultimately his responsibility.

To get a job in the Research Department of a good agency, you probably need a degree in statistics or psychology. You also need an analytical mind, and the ability to write readable reports.

Said Winston Churchill, ‘PERFECTIONISM is spelled PARALYSIS.’


‘When people aren’t having any fun, they don’t produce good advertising.’

Don’t play politics. If you practice the fiendish art of divide et impera, your agency will go up in smoke.

The motivation which makes a man a good student is not the kind of motivation which makes him a good leader.

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 do not believe that fear is a tool used by good leaders. People do their best work in a happy atmosphere.

Most of the great leaders I know have the ability to inspire people with their speeches. If you cannot write inspiring speeches yourself, use ghost-writers – but use good ones.

‘If your service is too generous, your clients will love you, but you will go broke.’

Never allow two people to do a job which one could do.

Never summon people to your office; it frightens them. Instead, go to see them in their offices, unannounced. A boss who never wanders about his agency becomes an invisible hermit.

‘If you are going to choose your agency on the basis of price, you are looking through the wrong end of the telescope. What you should worry about is not the price you pay for your agency’s services, but the selling power of your advertising.’

Tell your prospective client what your weak points are, before he notices them. This will make you more credible when you boast about your strong points.

If you boast about your genius for brilliant ideas, you run the risk that they will ask you why you don’t give them brilliant ideas.

The headlines which work best are those which promise the reader a benefit

‘Headlines of ten words sell more merchandise than short headlines.’

‘It is easier to write ten passably effective sonnets than one effective advertisement.’

Stay away from superlatives like ‘Our product is the best in the world.’ Gallup calls this Brag and Boast. It convinces nobody.

Always try to include the price of your products. You may see a necklace in a jeweler’s window, but you don’t consider buying it because the price is not shown and you are too shy to go in and ask. It is the same way with advertisements. When the price of the product is left out, people have a way of turning the page.

More people read the captions under illustrations than read the body copy, so never use an illustration without putting a caption under it. Your caption should include the brand name and the promise.

Advertising agencies usually set their headlines in capital letters. This is a mistake. Professor Tinker of Stanford has established that capitals retard reading. They have no ascenders or descenders to help you recognize words, and tend to be read letter by letter.

Layouts should be simple, avoiding the arty devices dear to second-rate art directors – like type which is too big to be readable, eccentric designs and headlines at the bottom of the page. If you make your ads look like editorial pages, you will get more readers.

Headlines get five times the readership of the body copy. If your headline doesn’t sell, you have wasted your money. Your headline should promise a benefit, or deliver news, or offer a service, or tell a significant story, or recognize a problem, or quote a satisfied customer.

According to Professor Hall, the most successful commodity products differentiated themselves in one of two ways: either by low cost or by having the best reputation for quality or service.

Winston Churchill said, ‘Short words are best, and the old words when short are best of all.’ This applies in spades to mail order copy.

‘The more people trust you, the more they buy from you.’

Remember, there is no correlation between the size of your audience and the number of orders you receive.

If you want to know more about direct response, start by reading Successful Direct Marketing Methods by Bob Stone, published by Crain Books in Chicago.

‘The key to successful marketing is superior product performance…. If the consumer does not perceive any real benefits in the brand, then no amount of ingenious advertising and selling can save it.’

Advertising which promises no benefit to the consumer does not sell, yet the majority of campaigns contain no promise whatever.

Sometimes you will find that the promise which wins your test is already being used by one of your competitors. Poor you.

‘We are no longer allowed to tell children to importune their mothers to buy our products.’

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. It is the mark of a brave man to admit defeat, cut his loss, and move on.

‘Sales are a function of product-value and advertising. Promotions cannot produce more than a temporary kink in the sales curve.’

It is usually assumed that marketers use scientific methods to determine the price of their products. Nothing could be further from the truth. In almost every case, the process of decision is one of guesswork.

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 back their advertising budgets achieve greater increases in profit than companies which do cut back.

‘The codfish lays ten thousand eggs, The homely hen lays one. The codfish never cackles To tell you what she’s done – And so we scorn the codfish While the humble hen we prize. It only goes to show you That it pays to advertise!’

The secret of his success was his ability to attract exceptionally able men, and to treat them with so much respect that they never left.

J. Walter Thompson – a psychologist, an economist, and a historian. He used to say that his agency was the ‘university’ of advertising.

Rubicam used to say, ‘The way we sell is to get read first.’

‘Advertising has a responsibility to behave properly. I proved that you can sell products without bamboozling the American public.’

the creative process can be summed up in three things he said: 1 ‘There is an inherent drama in every product. Our No. 1 job is to dig for it and capitalize on it.’ 2 ‘When you reach for the stars, you may not quite get one, but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either’ 3 ‘Steep yourself in your subject, work like hell, and love, honor and obey your hunches.’

Hopkins was interested in nothing but advertising. There is macabre pathos in the last sentence of his autobiography: ‘The happiest are those who live closest to nature, an essential to advertising success.’

‘Human nature hasn’t changed for a billion years. It won’t even vary in the next billion years. Only superficial things have changed. It is fashionable to talk about changing men.

‘Advertising is not the noblest creation of man’s mind, as so many of its advocates would like the public to think. It does not, single-handedly, sustain the whole structure of capitalism and democracy and the Free World. It is just as nonsensical to suggest that we are superhuman as to accept the indictment that we are subhuman. We are merely human, trying to do a necessary human job with dignity, with decency and with competence.’

‘There is one category of advertising which is totally uncontrolled and flagrantly dishonest: the television commercials for candidates in Presidential elections.’

Dishonest advertising is as evil as stuffing the ballot box. Perhaps the advertising people who have allowed their talents to be prostituted for this villainy are too naive to understand the complexity of the issues.

The best way to increase the sale of a product is to improve the product.
Profile Image for NeeL.
85 reviews37 followers
November 21, 2023
When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative.’ I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product. When Aeschines spoke, they said, ‘How well he speaks.’ But when Demosthenes spoke, they said, ‘Let us march against Philip.’

A discourse on advertising by the master of advertising, David Ogilvy himself.
I had wished to read the story behind Ogilvy and Mather (for which I should read 'Confessions of an advertising man' by the same author) and chosen this book, however it is an overall discourse on advertising which touches all the touchpoints for people in the business of Print Media, and has some very good relevance points with visuals and design in general.
The book serves as an act of zooming out and looking at advertising from a universal frame. It is very interesting and draws lots of references and examples along with sharp wit and humourous anecdotes.
Profile Image for Avishi.
4 reviews2 followers
July 21, 2023
Engrossing book inundated with profound insights augmented with Ogilvy’s wry sense of humour, practicality and years of unparalleled knowledge garnered through his experience on this subject!
Profile Image for Goran Jankuloski.
202 reviews19 followers
November 15, 2020
Bleda senka svog starijeg brata, Confessions of an Advertising man. Stampana je na masnom papiru, sa ikoničkom tipografijom, u formatu koji dozvoljava niz radova koji prate tekst. Sve su to tragovi koji upozoravaju da je ovo brošura za Ogilvy&Mather, a ne knjiga. Na svaki savet okićen superlativima valja dodati "uglavnom, ali zavisi od konteksta".
Profile Image for Alexander Pavlov.
20 reviews6 followers
September 19, 2018
Огилви описывает базовые принципы и правила рекламы, которые работали в его время. Многие из них работают по сей день и продолжат работать в будущем.
Рекомендую к прочтению всем, чье дело так или иначе связано с рекламой. Многое из написанного актуально в своевременном мире интернет-рекламы.
Profile Image for Pramod Biligiri.
33 reviews6 followers
September 24, 2021
This book is quite insightful if you've not read much about advertising or marketing before. It helps that it stays readable by keeping a dry sense of humour throughout. The author David Ogilvy was a titan in the field and worked from the 1930's till the '80s. His lasting legacy was to turn advertising from a purely creative pursuit to one backed by research and experiments. He tried hard to show that his methods led to more sales. In his own words, the most important sentence in the book is this: "Advertising which promises no benefit to the consumer does not sell, yet the majority of campaigns contain no promise whatever."

A bit of biographical detail may help locate this book better. Ogilvy started off selling cookers door-to-door in England. But he soon moved to the US to work for Gallup's "Audience Research Institute" where he learnt the effectiveness of surveys and quantitative tools. This remained an influence throughout his long career in print, billboard, radio and TV ads. While he can write a chapter titled "The 18 Miracles of Research", he can also come down hard on research which takes too long and produces no actionable items to drive a campaign forward. An utter rarity of a man, he was at one time both the Research Director and Creative Director of Ogilvy Inc!

The book's chapters are essays on topics like how to create advertising that sells, what copywriting techniques work for print and TV, what you can learn from Procter and Gamble, what kind of research should back up your advertising...and so on. There are also chapters on the logistics of running an ad agency - finding clients, hiring etc. These you can skip if you're interested only in advertisement related advice.

According to Ogilvy, to create a good ad you should first do some homework and understand the product's positioning and the brand's image / personality. After that, if you get a "big idea", you might go on to make a great ad. What are some examples of great ads? Well, not that you'd have heard of any of these: Merrill Lynch's Bull Commercial, the Marlboro Country commercial and so on. What makes this book great is passages like the following, where Ogilvy explains why staying humble is key when a possibly great idea is being birthed. Ask yourself: Did it make you gasp? Did you wish you'd thought of it yourself? Is it unique? Does it fit the strategy to perfection? And crucially, Can it be used for 30 years (meaning a loong time)?

That Ogilvy has spent a long time connecting the creative to the commercial becomes clear: "Big ideas come from the unconscious. This is true in art, in science and in advertising. But your unconscious has to be well informed [emphasis as in the original], or your idea will be irrelevant. Stuff your conscious mind with information, then unhook your rational thought process. You can help this process by going for a long walk, or taking a hot bath, or drinking half a pint of claret. Suddenly, if the telephone line from your unconscious is open, a big idea wells up within you".

He admits that such big ideas happen only a few dozen times in one's career. For the rest of the occasions, he offers suggestions he believes can multiply your ad's effectiveness. "For 35 years I have continued on the course charted by Gallup, collecting factors the way other men collect pictures and postage stamps."

These "factors" span everything from font size (serif is better!), color combinations (never white text on black!), to should you use sexuality (not if it's irrelevant to the product: "To show bosoms in a detergent advertisement would not sell the detergent") and so on. A surprising pattern he recommends is to use lots of text in a print ad as opposed to little, and an unethical method he suggests is to camouflage ads like editorial content. Also, he believes celebrities don't help!

Personally, I can see the sense in getting the basics right: lead by mentioning the benefit of the product, show the product a few times, demo the usage or packaging etc. But there is a tension in the broader suggestions which I don't think Ogilvy is able to settle, nor is there a permanently correct answer for all places. For example, he says that an ad with a story is always preferable. His own famous eye-patch for a shirt brand (link) hints at a backstory and makes the reader pause. But how far can you go in search of a story, brand image or big idea before you start undermining the benefits and relatability of a product?

I could end this review with any of a dozen quotable quotes from the book. So how about this one where he's berating again the prizing of form over function, aesthetic appeal over commerce: "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?" [emphasis in the original]

If such questions and their inherent tensions interest you, I suggest diving into this book.
1,551 reviews11 followers
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November 2, 2017
I would be fascinated to hear his thoughts on advertising today. This book enters the early 1980s, but is concentrated largely on 50s & 60s evidence. At the insistence of his publisher, Ogilvy included a page of short predictions for the future, one of which was the total disappearance of the hated billboard. How he would loathe the digital boards of today, which are even more intrusive than the simple “same picture for a month” billboards of my youth. Lots of interesting insight into how his mind (at least) worked. I am the sort that his business would detest: I pay almost no attention to advertising whatsoever. I don’t think my purchases are in any way related to ad campaigns. When I have focused on advertising it has been as a teacher, studying techniques of manipulation with first-year students: how to decode what ads are really doing, saying, and especially suggesting. He at least seems genuine. That is, in itself, quite an accomplishment given my biases.
Profile Image for Machiel Reyneke.
40 reviews3 followers
February 3, 2019
Classic reading from an advertising legend. Naturally, a lot isn't very applicable today, but there are many nuggets that are as applicable today as they will be in another 40 years. Focus on benefits to the user/consumer, be mindful of research results, and it often isn't worth reinventing wheel.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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