Quotations of David Ogilvy - 5

TELEVISION

COMMERCIALS

I have found that it is easier to double the selling power of a commercial than to double the audience of a programme. This may come as news to the Hollywood hidalgos who produce programmes, and look down their noses at us obscure copywriters who the commercials.
Confessions of an Advertising Man

The purpose of a commercial is not to entertain the viewer but to sell him, Horace Schwerin reports that there is no correlation between people liking commercials and being sold by them. But this does not mean that your commercials should be deliberately bad-mannered. On the contrary, there is reason to believe that it pays to make them human and friendly, if you can do so without being unctuous.
Confessions of an Advertising Man

Dr. Gallup reports that if you say something which you don’t also illustrate, the viewer immediately forgets it. I conclude that if you don’t show it there is no point in saying it. Try running your commercial with the sound turned off; if it doesn’t tell without sound, it is useless.
Confessions of an Advertising Man

Research has shown that commercials which open with a dramatic visual hold their audience better than commercials which don’t. If you are advertising a fire-extinguisher, open with the fire.
Creative Council Reports

JINGLES

Candor compels me to admit that I have no conclusive research to support my view that jingles are less persuasive than the spoken word. It is based on the difficulty I always experience in hearing the words in jingles, and on my experience as s door-to-door salesman; I never sang to my prospects. The advertisers who believe in the selling power of jingles have never had to sell anything.
Confessions of an Advertising Man

Next time you decide to have the sales pitch sung in a television or radio commercial, play the song to half-a-dozen people who know nothing about the product. Then ask them what it said.
Creative Council Reports
POSTERS

I have never liked posters. The passing motorist does not have time to read more than six words on a poster, any my early experience as a door-to-door salesman convinced me that it is impossible to sell anything with only six words. In a newspaper or magazine advertisement, I can use hundreds of words. Posters are for sloganeers.
Confessions of an Advertising Man


ADVERTISING AWARDS

It is the professional duty of the advertising agent to conceal his artifice. When Aeschines spoke, they said, “How well he speaks.” But when Demosthenes spoke, they said, “Let us march against Philip.” I’m for Demosthenes.
Confessions of an Advertising Man

Resist the temptation to write the kind of copy which wins awards. I am always gratified when I win an award, but most of the campaigns which produce results never win awards because they don’t draw attention to themselves.
Confessions of an Advertising Man


GOOD TASTE

While you are responsible to your clients for sales results, you are also responsible to consumers for the kind of advertising you bring into their homes. I abhor advertising that is blatant, dull, or dishonest.
Agencies which transgress this principle are not widely respected.
Principles of Management

Never write an advertisement which you wouldn’t want your own family to read. You wouldn’t tell lies to your own wife. Don’t tell them to mine.
Confessions of an Advertising Man


IDEAS

Senior men have no monopoly on great ideas. Nor do creative people. Some of the best ideas come from account executives, researchers and others. Encourage this; you need all the ideas you can get.
Principles of Management

Unless your advertising is built on a BIG IDEA it will pass like a ship in the night.
How to Create Advertising that Sells

Encourage innovation. Change is our life-blood, stagnation our death knell.
Principles of Management