In the middle 1980s, the ad agency I worked for had a client who was a big fan of David Ogilvy, one of the truly seminal figures in advertising of the 60s, 70s and 80s. At the time, I chafed a bit under some of Ogilvy’s rules (never reverse type out of a dark color; never use a negative word form in the headline), but you have to admire the principles the “father of advertising” codified. Not the least of these is Ogilvy’s belief that the purpose of advertising is to sell, and that successful advertising is always based on vast amounts of knowledge about the consumer.
Ogilvy wrote Ogilvy on Advertising in 1985, but the concepts he championed are as relevant in an age of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as ever. For one thing, he appreciated creativity, but not if it stood in the way of the sale. “Your role is to sell,” he said. “Don’t let anything distract you from the sole purpose of advertising.”
Ogilvy was a copywriter and understood the power of words — and especially words angled toward the consumer’s self-interest. Ogilvy was the original champion of the headline as product benefit statement, as in one of his most famous and successful: “Only Dove is one-quarter moisturizing cream.” Dove went to the top of the sales charts because it promised a benefit for anyone with dry skin. “On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy,” he said. “When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”
Nevertheless, David Ogilvy was also an early and fervent believer in the power of direct mail and considered this his secret weapon. He was never afraid of long copy – his philosophy was the more informative your advertising is, the more persuasive it will be — not unlike much of the long-form content found online today.
Ogilvy was a huge adherent of research, not just about the desires of consumers, but of how they acquired information. He pioneered studies that tracked the eye of consumers reading an ad, and found that they first looked at the picture, then the caption (if any), then the headline, subhead and copy (which they often skipped), and finally the logo. Ogilvy created a standard ad layout that formats these elements in order from top to bottom and the preponderant majority of ads today are still just variations on this theme.
In the end, Ogilvy believed that messaging had to have priority over everything else. Creativity, design, and layout should all be subordinated to the end goal of conveying a salient message in as persuasive a manner as possible. I could go on about David Ogilvy — many people have — but my advice if you want to know more is pick up a copy of Ogilvy on Advertising or Confessions of an Ad Man. You’ll find the master wasn’t afraid to tell you exactly what he thinks about making ads the Ogilvy way.