Background Image

...

Advertising Is A Business Of Words, But Advertising Agencies Are Infested With Men And Women Who Cannot Write. They Cannot Write Advertisements, And They Cannot Write Plans. They Are Helpless As Deaf Mutes On The Stage Of The Metropolitan Opera.

-David Ogilvy

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Advertising Is A Business

David Ogilvy

...

Advertising Is A Business Of Words, But Advertising Agencies Are Infested With Men And Women Who Cannot Write. They Cannot Write Advertisements, And They Cannot Write Plans. They Are Helpless As Deaf Mutes On The Stage Of The Metropolitan Opera.

Views: 6

Topic

More From David Ogilvy

It Is Flagrantly Dishonest For An Advertising Agent To Urge Consumers To Buy A Product Which He Would Not Allow His Own Wife To Buy.

H. L. Mencken Once Said That Nobody Ever Went Broke Underestimating The Taste Of The American Public. That Is Not True. I Have Come To Believe That It Pays To Make All Your Layouts Project A Feeling Of Good Taste, Provided That You Do It Unobtrusively. An Ugly Layout Suggests An Ugly Product. There Are Very Few Products Which Do Not Benefit From Being Given A First Class Ticket Through Life.

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. Do As You Would Be Done By.

When You Advertise Fire Extinguishers, Open With The Fire.

Fire Extinguishers

If You Have All The Research, All The Ground Rules, All The Directives, All The Data - It Doesn't Mean The Ad Is Written. Then You've Got To Close The Door And Write Something - That Is The Moment Of Truth Which We All Try To Postpone As Long As Possible.

The Temptation To Entertain Instead Of Selling Is Contagious.

Positioning Should Be Decided Before The Advertising Is Created

You Can't Save Souls In An Empty Church.

There Are Very Few Men Of Genius In Advertising Agencies. But We Need All We Can Find. Almost Without Exception They Are Disagreeable. Don't Destroy Them. They Lay Golden Eggs.

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 Eighty Cents Out Of Your Dollar.

It Follows That Unless Your Headline Sells Your Product, You Have Wasted 90 Percent Of Your Money.

If You Ever Have The Good Fortune To Create A Great Advertising Campaign, You Will Soon See Another Agency Steal It. This Is Irritating, But Don't Let It Worry You; Nobody Has Ever Built A Brand By Imitating Somebody Else's Advertising.

Nobody Has Ever Built A Brand By Imitating Somebody Else's Advertising.

Advertisement Negative

The More Informative Your Advertising, The More Persuasive It Will Be.

If It Is Something Important, Get A Colleague To Improve It.

I Never Write Fewer Than Sixteen Headlines For A Single Advertisement.

Try And Inject Into Every Commercial You Make A Touch Of Singularity; A Bird That Will Hook On To The Consumers Mind

Always Hold Your Sales Meetings In Rooms Too Small For The Audience, Even If It Means Holding Them In The Wc. 'standing Room Only' Creates An Atmosphere Of Success, As In Theatres And Restaurants, While A Half-empty Auditorium Smells Of Failure.

I Have An Inviolable Rule Against Employing Nepots And Spouses, Because They Breed Politics. Whenever Two People Get Married, One Of Them Must Depart - Preferably The Female, To Look After The Baby.

The Psychiatrists Say That Everybody Should Have A Hobby. The Hobby I Recommend Is Advertising

I Had A Friend Who Was The King's Surgeon In England. One Day I Asked Him What Makes A Great Surgeon. He Replied, "what Distinguishes A Great Surgeon Is His Knowledge. He Knows More Than Other Surgeons. During An Operation He Finds Something Which He Wasn't Expecting, Recognizes It And Knows What To Do About It." It's The Same Thing With Advertising People. The Good Ones Know More. How Do You Get To Know More? By Reading Books About Advertising. By Picking The Brains Of People Who Know More Than You Do. From The Magic Lanterns. And From Experience.

Creativity Needs Discipline And Freedom.

Much Of The Messy Advertising You See On Television Today Is The Product Of Committees. Committees Can Criticize Advertisements, But They Should Never Be Allowed To Create Them.

Any Damn Fool Can Put On A Deal, But It Takes Genius, Faith And Perseverance To Create A Brand.

When People Aren't Having Any Fun, They Seldom Produce Good Work. Kill The Grimness With Laughter. Encourage Exuberance. Get Rid Of Sad Dogs That Spread Gloom.

Tell The Truth, But Make The Truth Fascinating.

Telling The Truth

Don't Count The People That You Reach, Reach The People Who Count

Many People - And I Think I Am One Of Them - Are More Productive When They've Had A Little To Drink. I Find If I Drink Two Or Three Brandies, I'm Far Better Able To Write.

I Notice Increasing Reluctance On The Part Of Marketing Executives To Use Judgment; They Are Coming To Rely Too Much On Research, And They Use It As A Drunkard Uses A Lamp Post For Support, Rather Than For Illumination.

Hard Work Never Killed A Man. Men Die Of Boredom, Psychological Conflict, And Disease. They Do Not Die Of Hard Work.

I Have A Theory That The Best Ads Come From Personal Experience. Some Of The Good Ones I Have Done Have Really Come Out Of The Real Experience Of My Life, And Somehow This Has Come Over As True And Valid And Persuasive.

To Advertisers: "do Not Compete With Your Agency In The Creative Area. Why Keep A Dog And Bark Yourself?"

I Once Found Myself Conspiring With A British Cabinet Minister As To How We Might Persuade Her Majesty's Treasury To Cough Up More Money For The British Travel Advertising In America. Said He, "why Does Any American In His Senses Spend His Vacation In The Cold Damp Of An English Summer When He Could Equally Well Bask Under Italian Skies? I Can Only Suppose That Your Advertising Is The Answer." Damn Right.

At 60 Miles An Hour The Loudest Noise In This Rolls-royce Comes From The Electric Clock.

There Is No Need For Advertisements To Look Like Advertisements. If You Make Them Look Like Editorial Pages, You Will Attract About 50 Per Cent More Readers.

You Aren't Advertising To A Standing Army; You Are Advertising To A Moving Parade. Three Million Consumers Get Married Every Year. The Advertisement Which Sold A Refrigerator To Those Who Got Married Last Year Will Probably Be Just As Successful With Those Who'll Get Married Next Year. An Advertisement Is Just Like A Radar Sweep, Constantly Hunting New Prospects As They Come Into The Market. Get A Good Radar And Keep It Sweeping.

If You Can’t Be Brilliant, At Least Be Memorable

We All Have A Tendency To Use Research As A Drunkard Uses A Lamppost – For Support, Not For Illumination.

It's Not Creative Unless It Sells.

You Make The Best Products You Can, And You Grow As Fast As You Deserve To.

The Headline Is The Most Important Element In Most Advertisements. It Is The Telegram Which Decides The Reader Whether To Read The Copy.

Talent, I Believe, Is Most Likely To Be Found Among Nonconformists, Dissenters, And Rebels.

If It Doesn't Sell, It Isn't Creative.

Play To Win, But Enjoy The Fun.

I Have A Theory That The Best Ads Come From Personal Experience. Some Of The Good Ones I Have Done Have Really Come Out Of The Real Experience Of My Life, And Somehow This Has Come Over As True And Valid And Persuasive. People Love To Read Stories. They Like To Know You As A Real Person Who Has Your Struggle, Pain, Success And Failure, Etc. One Well-known Example Is Jared Fogle's Weight Loss Story Which Made Millions Of Dollars For Subway. Start To Collect Your Stories From Today And Use Them In Your Ad Campaigns.

Political Advertising Ought To Be Stopped. It's The Only Really Dishonest Kind Of Advertising That's Left. It's Totally Dishonest.

Managing An Advertising Agency Isn't All Beer And Skittles. After Fourteen Years Of It, I Have Come To The Conclusion That The Top Man Has One Principle Responsibility: To Provide An Atmosphere In Which Creative Mavericks Can Do Useful Work.

It Takes A Big Idea To Attract The Attention Of Consumers And Get Them To Buy Your Product. 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.

Great Hospitals Do Two Things. They Look After Patients, And They Teach Young Doctors. We Look After Clients, And We Teach Young Advertising People.

It Strikes Me As Bad Manners For A Magazine To Accept One Of My Advertisements And Then Attack It Editorially - Like Inviting A Man To Dinner Then Spitting In His Eye.

We Like People Who Are Honest. Honest In Argument, Honest With Clients, Honest With Suppliers, Honest With The Company - And Above All, Honest With Consumers.

There Is One Catagory Of Advertising Which Is Totally Uncontrolled And Flagrantly Dishonest: The Television Commercials For Candidates In Presidential Elections.

Television Commercials

The General Advertisers And Their Agencies Know Almost Nothing For Sure, Because They Cannot Measure The Results Of Their Advertising. They Worship At The Altar Of Creativity, Which Really Means 'originality': The Most Dangerous Word In The Lexicon Of Advertising

It Has Taken More Than A Hundred Scientists Two Years To Find Out How To Make The Product In Question; I Have Been Given Thirty Days To Create Its Personality And Plan Its Launching. If I Do My Job Well, I Shall Contribute As Much As The Hundred Scientists To The Success Of This Product.

Consumers Do Not Buy Products. They Buy Product Benefits.

The Consumer Isn't A Moron; She Is Your Wife. You Insult Her Intelligence If You Assume That A Mere Slogan And A Few Vapid Adjectives Will Persuade Her To Buy Anything. She Wants All The Information You Can Give Her.

Once Upon A Time I Was Riding On The Top Of A First Avenue Bus, When I Heard A Mythical Housewife Say To Another, "molly, My Dear, I Would Have Bought That New Brand Of Toilet Soap If Only They Hadn't Set The Body Copy In Ten Point Garamond." Don't You Believe It. What Really Decides Consumers To Buy Or Not To Buy Is The Content Of Your Advertising, Not Its Form.

Once Upon A Time

Most Agencies Run Scared, Most Of The Time. . . .frightened People Are Powerless To Produce Good Advertising. . . . If I Were Aclient, I Would Do Everything In My Power To Emancipate My Agencies From Fear, Even To The Extent Of Giving Them Long-term Contracts.

Shakespeare Wrote His Sonnets Within A Strict Discipline, Fourteen Lines Of Iambic Pentameter, Rhyming In Three Quatrains And A Couplet. Were His Sonnets Dull? Mozart Wrote His Sonatas Within An Equally Rigid Discipline - Exposition, Development, And Recapitulation. Were They Dull?.

When You Have Nothing To Say, Sing It.

The Most Important Word In The Vocabulary Of Advertising Is Test. If You Pretest Your Product With Consumers, And Pretest Your Advertising, You Will Do Well In The Marketplace.

Consumers Don't Think How They Feel. They Don't Say What They Think And They Don't Do What They Say.

The Creative Process Requires More Than Reason. Most Original Thinking Isn't Even Verbal. It Requires 'a Groping Experimentation With Ideas, Governed By Intuitive Hunches And Inspired By The Unconscious.' The Majority Of Business Men Are Incapable Of Original Thinking Because They Are Unable To Escape From The Tyranny Of Reason. Their Imaginations Are Blocked.

Advertising Is Only Evil When It Advertises Evil Things.

Advertising Business

Leaders Grasp Nettles.

Advertising Is A Business Of Words, But Advertising Agencies Are Infested With Men And Women Who Cannot Write. They Cannot Write Advertisements, And They Cannot Write Plans. They Are Helpless As Deaf Mutes On The Stage Of The Metropolitan Opera.

We Admire People Who Work Hard, Who Are Objective And Thorough. We Detest Office Politicians, Toadies, Bullies, And Pompous Asses. We Abhor Ruthlessness. The Way Up Our Ladder Is Open To Everybody. In Promoting People To Top Jobs, We Are Influenced As Much By Their Character As Anything Else.

What Really Decides Consumers To Buy Or Not To Buy Is The Content Of Your Advertising, Not Its Form.

Nobody Should Be Allowed To Create General Advertising Until He Has Served His Apprenticeship In Direct-response

Don't Hire A Dog, Then Bark Yourself

Experience Has Taught Me That Advertisers Get The Best Results When They Pay Their Agency A Flat Fee. It Is Unrealistic To Expect Your Agency To Be Impartial When Its Vested Interest Lies Wholly In The Direction Of Increasing Your Commissionable Advertising.

The Worst Fault A Salesman Can Commit Is To Be A Bore. Foster Any Attempt To Talk About Other Things; The Longer You Stay The Better You Get To Know The Prospect, And The More You Will Be Trusted.

Many Of The Greatest Creations Of Man Have Been Inspired By The Desire To Make Money...if Oxford Undergraduates Were Paid For Their Work, I Would Have Performed Miracles Of Scholarship And Become Regius Professor Of Modern History.

Creation Of Man

What You Say In Advertising Is More Important Than How You Say It.

I Once Used The Word Obsolete In A Headline, Only To Discover That 43 Per Cent Of Housewives Had No Idea What It Meant. In Another Headline, I Used The Word Ineffable, Only To Discover That I Didn't Know What It Meant Myself.

I Admire People With Gentle Manners Who Treat Other People As Human Beings.

People Who Think Well, Write Well

People Don't Buy A New Detergent Because The Manufacturer Told A Joke On Television Last Night.

Never Write An Advertisement Which You Wouldn't Want Your Family To Read. You Wouldn't Tell Lies To Your Own Wife. Don't Tell Them To Mine.

The Best Idea Is The Simplest.

The Business Community Wants Remarkable Advertising, But Turns A Cold Shoulder To The Kind Of People Who Can Produce It. That Is Why Most Advertisements Are So Infernally Dull.... Our Business Needs Massive Transfusions Of Talent. And Talent, I Believe, Is Most Likely To Be Found Among Nonconformists, Dissenters, And Rebels.

I Always Use My Clients' Products. This Is Not Toady-ism, But Elementary Good Manners.

A Consumer Is Not A Moron. She's Your Wife. Don't Insult Her Intelligence, And Don't Shock Her.

Develop Your Eccentricities Early, And No One Will Think You're Going Senile Later In Life

Why Should A Manufacturer Bet His Money, Perhaps The Future Of His Company, On Your Instinct?

It Takes Uncommon Guts To Stick To One Style In The Face Of All The Pressures To 'come Up With Something New' Every Six Months. It Is Tragically Easy To Be Stampeded Into Change. But Golden Rewards Await The Advertiser Who Has The Brains To Create A Coherent Image, And The Stability To Stick With It Over A Long Period.

Does Advertising Corrupt Editors? Yes It Does, But Fewer Editors Than You May Suppose... The Vast Majority Of Editors Are Incorruptible.

If You Always Hire People Who Are Bigger Than You Are, We Shall Become A Company Of Giants

Big Ideas Come From The Unconscious. This Is True In Art, In Science, And In Advertising. But Your Unconscious Has To Be Well Informed, Or Your Idea Will Be Irrelevant. Stuff Your Conscious Mind With Information, Then Unhook Your Rational Thought Process. You Can Help This Process By Going For A Long Walk, Or Taking A Hot Bath, Or Drinking Half A Pint Of Claret. Suddenly, If The Telephone Line From Your Unconscious Is Open, A Big Idea Wells Up Within You.

The Secret Of Long Life Is Double Careers. One To About Age Sixty, Then Another For The Next Thirty Years.

Making The Logo Twice The Size Is Often A Good Thing To Do, Because Most Advertisements Are Deficient In Brand Identification. Showing The Clients' Faces Is Also A Better Stratagem Than It May Sound, Because The Public Is More Interested In Personalities Than In Corporations. Some Clients Can Be Projected As Human Symbols Of Their Own Products.

Repeat Your Winners. 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.

The Advertisers Who Believe In The Selling Power Of Jingles Have Never Had To Sell Anything.

I Know Of A Brewer Who Sells More Of His Beer To The People Who Never See His Advertising Than To The People Who See It Every Week. Bad Advertising Can Unsell A Product.

I Can't Stand Callow Amateurs Who Aren't Sufficiently Interested In The Craft Of Advertising To Assume The Posture Of Students.

I Don't Believe In Tricky Advertising, I Don't Believe In Cute Advertising, I Don't Believe In Comic Advertising. The People Who Perpetrate That Kind Of Advertising Never Had To Sell Anything In Their Lives

You Now Have To Decide What 'image' You Want For Your Brand. Image Means Personality. Products, Like People, Have Personalities, And They Can Make Or Break Them In The Market Place.

I Have Noticed That Agencies Which Are Full Of Fun And Ferment Seem To Create The Best Advertising. If You Are Not Happy In Advertising, For Goodness Sake Find A Job In Which You Would Be Happy. For As Far As I Know, We Pass This Way Only Once

The Best Leaders Are Apt To Be Found Among Those Executives Who Have A Strong Component Of Unorthodoxy In Their Character. Instead Of Resisting Innovation, They Symbolize It.

The Relationship Between A Manufacturer And His Advertising Agency Is Almost As Intimate As The Relationship Between A Patient And His Doctor. Make Sure That You Can Life Happily With Your Prospective Client Before You Accept His Account.

Many Manufacturers Secretly Question Whether Advertising Really Sells Their Product, But Are Vaguely Afraid That Their Competitors Might Steal A March On Them If They Stopped.

Readers Travel So Fast They Don't Stop To Decipher The Meaning Of Obscure Headlines.

While You Are Responsible To Your Clients For Sales Results, You Are Responsible To Consumers For The Kind Of Advertising You Bring Into Their Homes.

Some Manufacturers Illustrate Their Advertisements With Abstract Paintings. I Would Only Do This If I Wished To Conceal From The Reader What I Was Advertising.

Abstract Painting

Never Stop Testing, And Your Advertising Will Never Stop Improving. Testing Was Used In Advertising Decades Ago. The Internet Has Made Testing So Easy That Every Online Marketer Can Use It To Improve Advertising Results. Google Content Experiment Is A Free Tool For You To Do Split Testing.

It Is Important To Admit Your Mistakes, And To Do So Before You Are Charged With Them. Many Clients Are Surrounded By Buckpassers Who Make A Fine Art Of Blaming The Agency For Their Own Failures. I Seize The Earliest Opportunity To Assume The Blame.

When Someone Is Made The Head Of An Office In The Ogilvy & Mather Chain, I Send Him A Matrioshka Doll From Gorky. If He Has The Curiosity To Open It, And Keep Opening It Until He Comes To The Inside Of The Smallest Doll, He Finds This Message: If Each Of Us Hires People Who Are Smaller Than We Are, We Shall Become A Company Of Dwarfs. But If Each Of Us Hires People Who Are Bigger Than We Are, We Shall Become A Company Of Giants.

Hire People Who Are Better Than You Are, Then Leave Them To Get On With It. Look For People Who Will Aim For The Remarkable, Who Will Not Settle For The Routine.

Service Culture

Candor Compels Me To Admit That I Have No Conclusive Research To Support My View That Jingles Are Less Persuasive Than The Spoken Word. You'd Run Like Hell If A Salesman Came To Your Door And Began Singing At You. Why Do It In Advertising?

Encourage Innovation. Change Is Our Lifeblood, Stagnation Our Death Knell.

Be More Ambitious. Don't Bunt. When You Get A Job To Do A Story Or An Ad, Try And Hit The Ball Out Of The Park Every Time

The Success Of A Meeting Often Depends On Having The Right Documents - Proofs, Artwork, Schedules, Research Charts, Etc. - Present At The Start Of The Meeting. All Too Often We Arrive Like Plumbers, Leaving Our Tools Behind.

What Is A Good Advertisement? An Advertisement Which Pleases You Because Of Its Style, Or An Advertisement Which Sells The Most? They Are Seldom The Same.

In The Modern World Of Business, It Is Useless To Be A Creative, Original Thinker Unless You Can Also Sell What You Create.

Within Every Brand Is A Product, But Not Every Product Is A Brand.

It's The Lack Of Ambition That Cripples Most People, And Makes Them So Pedestrian In The Advertising/creative Business

Can Advertising Foist An Inferior Product On The Consumer? Bitter Experience Has Taught Me That It Cannot. On Those Rare Occasions When I Have Advertised Products Which Consumer Tests Have Found Inferior To Other Products In The Same Field, The Results Have Been Disastrous.

Never Write More Than Two Pages On Any Subject.

Good Products Can Be Sold By Honest Advertising. If You Don't Think The Product Is Good, You Have No Business To Be Advertising It.

If You Want Action, Don’t Write. Go And Tell The Guy What You Want.

Every Advertisement Should Be Thought Of As A Contribution To The Complex Symbol Which Is The Brand Image.

I Always Said That Mega-mergers Were For Megalomaniacs.

Nobody Ever Arrives At A Very Big Idea Through A Conscious, Rational Thought Process. It Comes From Your Unconscious.

My Motto Has Always Been: Only First Class Business And That In A First Class Way

A Lot Of Today's Campaigns Are Based On Optimum Positioning But Are Totally Ineffective - Because They Are Dull, Or Badly Constructed, Or Ineptly Written. If Nobody Reads Your Advertisement Or Looks At Your Commercial, It Doesn't Do You Much Good To Have The Right Positioning.

Agencies Which Frequently Work Nights And Weekends Are More Stimulating, More Successful - And More Profitable.

Never Stop Testing, And Your Advertising Will Never Stop Improving.

Testing Yourself

Every Advertisement Is Part Of The Long Term Investment In The Personality Of The Brand.

If You, My Fellow Copywriters Or Art Directors, Want To Win The Award, Devote Your Genius To Making The Cash Register Ring.

David Ogilvy Made His Copywriters Come Up 100 Different Headlines For Every Ad They Wrote.

Never Use Jargon Words Like 'reconceptualize', 'demassification', 'attitudinally', 'judgmentally'. They Are Hallmarks Of A Pretentious Ass.

The More Informative Your Advertising, The More Persuasive It Will Be. Before People Making A Buying Decision, They Have Many Questions. For Example, Why They Should Buy From You, Why Your Product Is Better Than Other Similar Products, Why They Should Trust You, And Why They Should Buy It Now, Etc.

The Only Marketers Who Know What The Hell They're Doing Are Those Who Have Worked In Sales

You Have Only 30 Seconds In A Tv Commercial. If You Grab Attention In The First Frame With A Visual Surprise, You Stand A Better Chance Of Holding The Viewer. People Screen Out A Lot Of Commercials Because They Open With Something Dull. When You Advertise Fire-extinguishers, Open With The Fire.

I Never Tell One Client That I Cannot Attend His Sales Convention Because I Have A Previous Engagement With Another Client; Successful Polygamy Depends Upon Pretending To Each Spouse That She Is The Only Pebble On Your Beach.

I Don't Know The Rules Of Grammar... If You're Trying To Persuade People To Do Something, Or Buy Something, It Seems To Me You Should Use Their Language, The Language They Use Every Day, The Language In Which They Think. We Try To Write In The Vernacular.

Write The Way You Talk. Naturally.

The More Story-appeal There Is In The Picture Or In The Photograph, The More People Would Look At Your Ad

Claude Hopkins.. Maintained That Nobody With A College Education Could Write An Advertisement Addressed To The Mass Millions. That's Absolute Poppycock.

The Line Between Pride In Our Work And Neurotic Obstinacy Is A Narrow One. We Make Our Recommendations Clear. But We Do Not Grudge Our Clients The Right To The Final Say. It Is Their Money.

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.

The Worst Fault A Salesman Can Commit Is To Be A Bore...... Pretend To Be Vastly Interested In Any Subject The Prospects Shows An Interest In.

Viewers Have A Way Of Remembering The Celebrity While Forgetting The Product. I Did Not Know This When I Paid Eleanor Roosevelt $35,000 To Make A Commercial For Margarine. She Reported That Her Mail Was Equally Divided. "one Half Was Sad Because I Had Damaged My Reputation. The Other Half Was Happy Because I Had Damaged My Reputation." Not One Of My Proudest Memories.

Lazy And Superficial Men And Women Do Not Produce Superior Work.

If You Ever Find A Man Who Is Better Than You Are - Hire Him. If Necessary, Pay Him More Than You Pay Yourself.

Better Than You

Good Copy Can't Be Written With Tongue In Cheek, Written Just For A Living. You've Got To Believe In The Product.

On The Average, Five Times As Many People Read The Headlines As Read The Body Copy.

First, Make Yourself A Reputation For Being A Creative Genius. Second, Surround Yourself With Partners Who Are Better Than You Are. Third, Leave Them To Go Get On With It.

Our Offices Must Always Be Headed By The Kind Of Men Who Command Respect. Not Phonies, Zeros Or Bastards.

Consumers Still Buy Products Whose Advertising Promises Them Value For Money, Beauty, Nutrition, Relief From Suffering, Social Status And So On.

The Majority Of Business Men Are Not Capable Of An Original Thought, Simply Because They Cannot Escape The Tyranny Of Reason.

Original Thought

Big Ideas Are Usually Simple Ideas.

Training Should Not Be Confined To Trainees. It Should Be A Continuous Process, And Should Include The Entire Professional Staff Of The Agency. The More Our People Learn, The More Useful They Can Be To Our Clients.

Why Do Eight Out Of Ten New Consumer Products Fail? Sometimes Because They Are Too New. The First Cold Cereals Were Rejected By Consumers. More Often New Products Fail Because They Are Not New Enough.

Never Use Tricky Or Irrelevant Headlines… People Read Too Fast To Figure Out What You Are Trying To Say.

Don't Bunt. Aim Out Of The Ball Park. Aim For The Company Of Immortals.

We Exist To Build The Business Of Our Clients. The Recommendations We Make To Them Should Be The Recommendations We Would Make If We Owned Their Companies, Without Regard To Our Own Short-term Interest. This Earns Their Respect, Which Is The Greatest Asset We Can Have.

Our Business Is Infested With Idiots Who Try To Impress By Using Pretentious Jargon.

I Do Not Regard Advertising As Entertainment Or An Art Form, But As A Medium Of Information. When I Write An Advertisement, I Don’t Want You To Tell Me That You Find It ‘creative.’ I Want You To Find It So Interesting That You Buy The Product.

Advertising Reflects The Mores Of Society, But It Does Not Influence Them.

I Was Doing A Campaign Once For A Manufacturer, And I Couldn't Think Of An Ideas, And I Was Kind Of Desperate About It. The Night Before I Had To Show Something To My Client I Had A Dream, An Interesting Dream. I Woke Up And For Once In My Life I Wrote It Down And Went Back To Sleep Next Morning I Went To The Office And Had That Dream Out Into A Tv Commercial Which Is Still Running Thirty Years After And Which Has Made That Particular Product The Leader In Its Field.

I Did Not Feel 'evil' When I Wrote Advertisements For Puerto Rico. They Helped Attract Industry And Tourists To A Country Which Had Been Living On The Edge Of Starvation For 400 Years.

Great Marketing Only Makes A Bad Product Fail Faster.

I Avoid Clients For Whom Advertising Is Only A Marginal Factor In Their Marketing Mix. They Have An Awkward Tendency To Raid Their Advertising Appropriations Whenever They Need Cash For Other Purposes.

Madison Avenue Is Full Of Masochists Who Unconsciously Provoke Rejection By Their Clients. I Know Brilliant Men Who Have Lost Every Account They Have Ever Handled.

Unless Your Campaign Has A Big Idea, It Will Pass Like A Ship In The Night.

If You Can’t Advertise Yourself, What Hope Do You Have Of Advertising Anything Else?

If You Have A Truly Big Idea, The Wrong Technique Won't Kill It. And If You Don't Have A Big Idea, The Right Technique Won't Help You

Develop Your Eccentricities While You Are Young. That Way, When You Get Old, People Won't Think You're Going Gaga.

Make Sure You Have A Vice President In Charge Of Your Revolution, To Engender Ferment Among Your More Conventional Colleagues.

You Aren’t Advertising To A Standing Army; You Are Advertising To A Moving Parade.

Advertising Is The Place Where The Selfish Interests Of The Manufacturer Coincide With The Interests Of Society.

I Never Assign A Product To A Writer Unless I Know That He Is Personally Interested In It. Every Time I Have Written A Bad Campaign, It Has Been Because The Product Did Not Interest Me.

Like A Midwife, I Make My Living Bringing New Babies Into The World, Except That Mine Are New Advertising Campaigns.

What You Learn Is More Important Than What You Earn.

Study The Methods Of Your Competitors And Do The Exact Opposite.

Where People Aren't Having Any Fun, They Seldom Produce Good Work.

The Manufacturer Who Finds Himself Up The Creek Is The Short-sighted Opportunist Who Siphons Off All His Advertising Dollars For Short-term Promotions.

I Do Not Regard Advertising As Entertainment Or An Art Form, But As A Medium Of Information.

The Consumer Isn't A Moron; She Is Your Wife.

Do Not Address Your Readers As Though They Were Gathered Together In A Stadium. When People Read Your Copy, They Are Alone. Pretend You Are Writing To Each Of Them A Letter On Behalf Of Your Client.

You Cannot Bore People Into Buying Your Product - You Can Only Interest Them In Buying It.

Give People A Taste Of Old Crow, And Tell Them It's Old Crow. Then Give Them Another Taste Of Old Crow, But Tell Them It's Jack Daniel's. Ask Them Which They Prefer. They'll Think The Two Drinks Are Quite Different. They Are Tasting Images

It Has Been Found That The Less An Advertisement Looks Like An Advertisement And The More It Looks Like An Editorial, The More Readers Stop, Look, And Read.

I'd Like To Be Remembered, As A Copywriter Who Had Some Big Ideas. That's What The Advertising Business Is All About. Big Ideas

Advertising Business

Ninety-nine Percent Of Advertising Doesn't Sell Much Of Anything.

Nowadays It Is The Fashion To Pretend That No Single Individual Is Ever Responsible For A Successful Advertising Campaign. This Emphasis On "teamwork" Is Bunkum - A Conspiracy Of The Mediocre Majority.

Creativity Is A Fancy Word For The Work We Have To Do By Friday.

Advertising People Who Ignore Research Are As Dangerous As Generals Who Ignore Decodes Of Enemy Signals.

If You Tell Lies About A 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.

The Pursuit Of Excellence Is Less Profitable Than The Pursuit Of Bigness, But It Can Be More Satisfying.

There Isn’t Any Significant Difference Between The Various Brands Of Whiskey, Or Cigarettes Or Beer. They Are All About The Same. And So Are The Cake Mixes And The Detergents, And The Margarines… The Manufacturer Who Dedicates His Advertising To Building The Most Sharply Defined Personality For His Brand Will Get The Largest Share Of The Market At The Highest Profit.

Supposing You've Got An Acute Appendicitis. You've Got To Be Operated On Tonight. Would You Like To Have A Surgeon Who's Read Some Books Of Anatomy And Knows How To Do That Operation - Or Would You Prefer To Have A Surgeon Who Refused To Read All Books About Anatomy And Relied On His Own Instinct?

The Best Ideas Come As Jokes. Make Your Thinking As Funny As Possible.

Sound An Alarm! Advertising, Not Deals, Builds Brands.

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.

A Good Advertisement Is One Which Sells The Product Without Drawing Attention To Itself.

Headlines Can Be Strengthend By The Inclusion Of Emotional Words Like Darling, Love, Fear, Proud, Friend And Baby.

If Each Of Us Hires People Who Are Smaller Than We Are, We Shall Become A Company Of Dwarfs. But If Each Of Us Hires People Who Are Bigger Than We Are, We Shall Become A Company Of Giants.

I Figure That My Staff Will Be Less Reluctant To Work Overtime If I Work Longer Hours Than They Do.

Trending Author

Shirley Hazzard

Category