Ogilvy on Advertising

Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night. I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea. I am supposed to be one of the more fertile inventors of big ideas, but in my long career as a copywriter I have not had more than 20, if that. Big ideas come from the unconscious. This is true in a

If you make your ads look like editorial pages, you will get more readers. Far more.

His attitude to 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 lo

His definition of a good advertisement was that ‘its public is not only strongly sold by it, but both the public and the advertiser remember it for a long time as an admirable piece of work.’

In print advertisements, your headline is the most important element. The other day I saw one headline produce five times as many orders as another. If your headline promises your strongest and most distinct benefit, you are on your way to success. Good photographs of your product cost more than bad ones, but they also sell more. When you want to s