Ogilvy on Advertising

‘Almost any question can be answered, cheaply, quickly and finally, by a test campaign. And that’s the way to answer them – not by arguments around the table.’ ‘Ad writers forget they are salesmen and try to be performers. Instead of sales, they seek applause.’ ‘Whenever possible we introduce a personality into our ads. By making a man famous we ma

Agencies add new services the way universities add new courses. Nothing wrong with that if you also discontinue services which have outlived their relevance. To keep your boat moving through the water, keep scraping the barnacles off its bottom.

Albert Lasker – the most astute of all advertising men – replied, ‘Humility in the presence of a good idea.’ It is horribly difficult to recognize a good idea. I shudder to think how many I have rejected. Research can’t help you much, because it cannot predict the cumulative value of an idea, and no idea is big unless it will work for thirty years.

Instead of assigning a project to one creative group, he had a habit of putting several groups in competition. It was enough, he once said, ‘to send strong men staggering to buy a goat farm.’

If you are lucky enough to write a good advertisement, repeat it until it stops selling. Scores of good advertisements have been discarded before they lost their potency. Research shows that the readership of an advertisement does not decline when it is run several times in the same magazine. Readership remains at the same level throughout at least

Research can tell you whether your advertising communicates what you want it to communicate. Keep in mind E. B. White’s warning, ‘When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair.’