1. The most important decision. We have learned that the effect of your advertising on your sales depends more on this decision than on any other: How should you position your product? Should you position SCHWEPPES as a soft drink—or as a mixer? Should you position DOVE as a product for dry skin or as a product which gets hands really clean? The results of your campaign depend less on how we write your advertising than on how your product is positioned. It follows that positioning should be decided before the advertising is created. Research can help. Look before you leap.
2. Large promise. The greatest weapon in advertising is a promise, a big benefit, a theme, or a slogan. It is a gift for the consumer. And the product must deliver the promised benefit. Most advertising promises nothing. It is doomed to fail in the marketplace—the soul of an advertisement.—Samuel Johnson
3. Brand image. Every advertisement should contribute to the complex symbol which is the brand image. Most products lack advertising image from one year to another. The manufacturer who dedicates his advertising to building the most sharply defined image for his brand gets the largest share of the market.
4. Big ideas. Unless your advertising is built on a BIG IDEA it will pass like a ship in the night. It takes a BIG IDEA to jolt the consumer out of his indifference—to make him notice your advertising, remember it, and take action. Big, simple ideas are usually simple. Said Charles Clore: “Originality is the enemy of successful advertising.” Big ideas are usually simple ideas. Said Charles Clore: “Originality is the enemy of successful advertising.” Big ideas come from the unconscious: “To understand the nature of big ideas, we must understand the nature of the unconscious.”—David Ogilvy
5. A first-class ticket. Ogilvy & Mather has been conspicuously successful in doing this—for Pepperidge, Hathaway, Schweppes, Maxwell House, and others. All these advertisers agree on one thing: you must spend a lot of money to make your brand a household name, and they will likely buy it.
6. Don’t be a bore. Nobody was ever bored into buying your product. Yet most advertising is impersonal, detached, cold—and dull. It pays to involve the customer. Talk to her. Get her to buy her product. Charm her. Make her hungry for your brand.
7. Innovate. Start trends—instead of following them. Advertising which follows a fashionable fad, or is imitative, is seldom successful. It pays to innovate, blaze new trails, instead of following old ones. Look for the leap forward in innovation with consumers.
8. Be suspicious of awards. The pursuit of creative awards seduces creative people from the pursuit of sales.
9. Psychological segmentation. Any good agency knows how to position products for demographic segments of the market—for children, for young adults, for old people, for the South. But Ogilvy & Mather has learned that it often pays to position products for psychological segments of the market-Benz Benz advertising is positioned to nonconformists who scoff at “status symbols” and reject flimflam appeals to snobbery.
10. Don’t bury news. It is easier to interest the consumer in a product when it is new than at any other point in its life. Many products have news of real interest to the consumer baked right into them. New products fail because the advertising fails to exploit the opportunities for news. Make your new product launch with a BOOM-BOOM!
11. Go the whole hog. Most advertising campaigns are too complicated. They reflect a long list of objectives, and try to reconcile the divergent views of too many executives. By attempting too many things, they achieve nothing. It pays to boil down your strategy to one simple promise—and go the whole hog in delivering that promise.
What Works Best in Television
12. Testimonials. Avoid irrelevant celebrities. Testimonials from real people are almost always successful. Either celebrities or real people can be effective. But avoid irrelevant celebrities whose fame has no natural connection with your product or your customers. Irrelevant celebrities steal attention from your product.
13. Problem-solution (don’t cheat!) You set up a problem that the consumer recognizes. And you prove how your product can solve that problem. And you prove that it works—like we did for a laundry product. This technique has always worked for Ogilvy & Mather for thirty years, and it still works. But don’t use it unless you can prove that your product delivers.
14. Visual demonstrations. If they are honest, visual demonstrations are generally effective in the marketplace.
15. Slice of life. These playlets are corny, and most copywriters detest them. But they have sold a lot of merchandise, and are still selling.
16. Avoid logorrhea. Make your pictures tell the story. What you say is more important than how you say it. Many commercials drown the viewer in a torrent of words. We call that logorrhea (rhymes with diarrhea). We have created some great commercials without words.
17. On-camera voice. Commercials using on-camera voice do significantly better than commercials using voice-over.
18. Musical backgrounds. Most commercials use musical backgrounds. However, on the average, musical backgrounds reduce recall of your commercial. Very few people accept musical backgrounds in television advertising.
19. Stand-ups. The stand-up pitch can be effective, if it is delivered with straightforward honesty.
20. Supers. The more supers, the better. Supers are a bountiful source of singles—those catchy little phrases that stick in the consumer’s mind. One such burst is the SNNENONG DEVICE, or relevant symbol—like the crowns in our commercials for Imperial Margarine. Less than five percent of television commercials use cartoons or animation. They are less persuasive than live commercials. The consumer cannot identify herself with the character in the cartoon. And cartoons do not invite belief. Cartoons may be okay for selling to children—but not to grown-ups. In Los Angeles, we tell our children that animation is better than live action—you are talking to children. They think you know—they have addressed us more than other advertising agencies to children. The children’s commercials are more likely to be changed. We have found that the effectiveness of a commercial campaign can be changed.
21. Animation & cartoons. Less than five percent of television commercials use cartoons or animation. They are less persuasive than live commercials. The consumer cannot identify herself with the character in the cartoon. And cartoons do not invite belief.
22. More effective than average. Factual vs. emotional commercials. Factual commercials have been more successful than emotional ones in the commercials we have tested for Maxwell House Coffee and Hershey’s Milk Chocolate.
23. The opening. We have found that opening with the brand name grabs the audience at a higher level than opening with the product category.
What Works Best in Print
24. Headlines. On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent 80 percent of your advertising dollar. It follows that a headline must do more than attract attention—it must promise a benefit. Headlines that promise benefits sell more than those that don’t. News in headlines, time after time, we have found that it pays to inject genuine news into your headlines—or new ways to use an old product.
25. News in headlines. Time after time, we have found that it pays to inject genuine news into products, or new improvements in an old product, or new ways to use an old product—appropriate to this.
26. Simple headlines. Your headline should be easy to read—not simple-minded language—but language that is easy to decipher, the meaning of words is clear.
27. How many words in a headline? In headline tests conducted with the cooperation of a big department store, it was found that headlines of ten words or more sold more goods than shorter headlines. In terms of recall, headlines between eight and ten words are most effective.
28. Localize headlines. In local advertising, it pays to include the name of the city in your headline.
29. Select your prospects. When you advertise a product which is consumed only by a special group, it pays to “flag” that group in your headline—MOTHERS, BED-WETTERS, GOING TO EUROPE?
30. Yes, people read long copy. Readership falls off rapidly up to fifty words, but drops very little between fifty and five hundred words. Ogilvy & Mather has used long copy—with notable success—for Mercedes-Benz, Cessna Citation, Merrill Lynch, and Shell gasoline. “The more you tell, the more you sell.”
31. Story appeal in picture. Ogilvy & Mather has gotten notable results with photographs which suggest a story—like the eye-patched man for Hathaway shirts. These pictures draw the reader into the copy to find out, “What’s going on here?” Harold Rudolph called this magic element “story appeal.” And the more people look at your advertisement, the more product you’ll sell.
32. Before & after. Before and after advertisements are somewhat above average in attention value. Any form of “visualized contrast” seems to work well.
33. Photographs vs. artwork. Ogilvy & Mather has found that photographs work better than drawings—almost invariably. They attract more readers, generate more appetite, are more believable, are better remembered, and sell more merchandise.
34. Use captions. On average, twice as many people read the captions under photographs as read the body copy. It follows that you should never use a photograph without putting a caption under it; and each caption should be a miniature advertisement for the product—complete with brand name and promise.
35. Editorial layouts. Ogilvy & Mather has had more success with editorial layouts than with “addy” layouts. Editorial layouts get higher readership than conventional advertisements.
36. Repeat your winners. Scores of great advertisements have been discarded before they have begun to pay off. Readership can actually increase with repetition—up to five repetitions.
Is This All We Know?
These findings apply to most categories of products. But not to all. Ogilvy & Mather has developed a separate and specialized body of knowledge on what makes for success in advertising food products, tourist destinations, proprietary medicines, children’s products—and other classifications. But this is not a complete compendium of the things Ogilvy & Mather has learned. The clients of Ogilvy & Mather have revealed only the most successful techniques.