81 Quotes Tagged: ogilvy_75

Most manufacturers are reluctant to accept any limitation on the image of their brand. They want it to be all things to all people. They want their brand to be a male brand and a female brand. An upper -class brand and a plebeian brand. They generally end up with a brand which has no personality of any kind, a wishy-washy neuter. No capon ever rules the roost.

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.

Big ideas are usually simple ideas.

If you tell lies about your product you will be found out – either by the government, which will prosecute you, or by the consumer, who will punish you by not buying your product a second time.

Get rid of sad dogs who spread gloom.

Madison Avenue is full of masochists who unconsciously provoke rejection by their clients. I know brilliant men who have lost every account they have handled.

A lot of advertisements and television commercials look like minutes of a committee meeting, and that is what they are. Advertising seems to sell most when it is written by a solitary individual. He must study the product, the research, and the precedents. Then he must shut the door of his office and write the advertisements.

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.

Candor compels me to admit 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 a door-to-door salesment; I never sang to my prospects. The advertisers who believe in the selling power of jingles have never had to sell anything.

Scores of great advertisements have been discarded before they have begun to pay off.

I despise toadies who suck up to their bosses; they are generally the same people who bully their subordinates.

Do not summon people to your office – it frightens them. Instead, go to see them in their offices. This makes you visible throughout the wanders about his agency becomes a hermit, out of touch with his staff.

Most readers look at the photograph first. If you put it in the middle of the page, the reader will start by looking in the middle. Then her eye must go up to read the headline; this doesn't work, because people have a habit of scanning downwards. However, suppose a few readers do read the headline after seeing the photograph below it. After that, you require them to jump down past the photograph which they have already seen. Not bloody likely.

It is a mistake to use highfalutin language when you advertise to uneducated people. I once used the word OBSOLETE in a headline, only to discover that 33% of housewives had no idea of what it meant. In another headline, I used the word INEFFABLE, only to discover that I didn't know what it meant myself.

The most important word in the vocabulary of advertising is TEST. Test your premise. Test your media. Test your headlines and your illustrations. Test the size of your advertisements. Test your frequency. Test your level of expenditure. Test your commercials. Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving.