What makes consumers more likely to purchase a product? Why do many advertisers miss the mark when creating their marketing campaigns?
In Confessions of an Advertising Man, David Ogilvy shares valuable insights about creating informative ads that drive sales. He reveals how providing substantial product information builds trust and increases consumer interest.
Keep reading to learn what this advertising legend says about crafting messages that resonate with audiences and lead to real results.
Informative Ads
Ogilvy contends that the best ads are informational. Consumers are more likely to buy your product if you give them facts and evidence explaining why it would benefit them. If your ad doesn’t clearly convey a tangible benefit, it’ll struggle to make sales even if it’s otherwise stunning.
However, many advertisers falsely assume consumers don’t care about the facts. Consequently, they don’t put out informative ads and instead offer ads that just look and sound nice. These ads lack substantial information about the product and come across as insults to consumers’ intelligence. In the end, they are less likely to make sales.
| The Best Ads Are Informational but Stretch the Truth Marketing expert Seth Godin has written extensively about advertising and elaborates on many of the same topics as Ogilvy. In All Marketers Are Liars, Godin agrees with Ogilvy that ads should be honest and that deceptive advertising harms businesses and consumers. However, he argues that some degree of “fibbing” or storytelling is acceptable in marketing, as long as it enhances the product and benefits the customer. As an example, Godin cites the artisan Georg Riedel, who crafts wine glasses. When Riedel lets customers believe that his glasses enhance the taste of wine, it becomes true for them, even if there’s no scientific evidence to back it up. In Permission Marketing, Godin (like Ogilvy) notes that most advertisers make the mistake of using flashy ads that lack substantive information about the product. He explains that this is because in the age of mass media like radio and television, the most effective advertisements were those that were best able to seize an audience’s attention. These advertisements may have been original and interesting, but they weren’t informational, making them less valuable to the consumer. Godin contends that, in the Internet Age, the more effective strategy is “permission marketing,” which involves sending ads directly to individual consumers after they request it. For example, if you give your email address to an online shoe store so they can send you exclusive discounts, you’ve opted into their permission marketing campaign. Since you’ve agreed to receive the marketing messages, the advertiser doesn’t need to rely on flashy tactics to hold your attention. Instead, they can focus on explaining the product’s value proposition and convincing you that the brand is reliable and trustworthy. |
Ogilvy asserts that the body of your ad should deliver as much relevant product information as possible. The best ads provide enough information for viewers to realize how much the product will benefit them. For this reason, provide a comprehensive sales pitch that builds on the promise made in the headline, detailing every appealing feature your product has.
As we’ve discussed, ads also need to be interesting to capture consumers’ attention. You may worry that if your ad contains too many product details, it’ll be too long to be consistently interesting and your audience will get bored. However, Ogilvy insists that this is nothing to worry about; if the audience reads the headline and realizes that your product is relevant to them, they’ll find your ad interesting and read all of it, no matter how long it is.
The body text of your ad should be as easy and pleasant to read as possible. Use simple, plain language that any reader can understand. Write in short sentences and paragraphs to make your text more digestible and maintain the reader’s interest. Additionally, write in a warm, personal tone—Ogilvy suggests imagining that you’re sharing information about a great product with a friend at a dinner party.
(Shortform note: In The Boron Letters, Gary Halbert also recommends using plain language and a short, punchy style to make your ads easy and pleasant to read. Additionally, like Ogilvy, Halbert advises writing in a personal tone because the feeling of a personal connection makes people pay closer attention. To further strengthen this personal connection, consider adding details about your life to the body of your ad. In particular, Halbert recommends briefly painting a picture of where you are and what you’re doing while you’re writing the ad. For instance, you might start an email promoting your instructional photography course by describing the beautiful forest you can currently see outside your office window.)
| Product Information Could Ruin Some Ads While Ogilvy advocates packing advertisements with as many relevant product details as possible, some might argue that this approach could backfire by spoiling your ad’s emotional impact. Marketing experts divide advertisements into two categories: informative and persuasive. While informative ads rely heavily on facts, figures, and comprehensive product details to educate consumers, persuasive ads leverage a broader range of emotional tactics to promote a brand. (All ads try to both inform and persuade to some degree, but they typically lean more heavily into one or the other.) Ogilvy argues against the idea that including too much product information in an ad will bore consumers. However, even if they don’t get bored, excessive information in a persuasive ad can dilute or distract from its intended emotional appeal. For example, consider the Budweiser “Puppy Love” Super Bowl ad, which depicts an adorable friendship between Clydesdale horses and a puppy. This ad attempts to get viewers to associate the story’s warm, fuzzy feelings with their beer brand. But if the ad were to interrupt this story by listing beer ingredients, brewing stats, or packaging details, it would ruin the ad’s emotional impact. |
Creating Persuasive Imagery
Finally, Ogilvy states that effective advertisements use images that spark curiosity. By using pictures that are unusual at first glance and need more context to fully understand, you can pull the audience deeper into the main body of your ad.
For example, imagine flipping through a magazine and encountering an ad featuring a bright yellow lemon with a USB port. You’re intrigued—why does this fruit have a plug? You read the ad’s text, which reveals that this is an ad for a nonprofit organization working to develop technology to convert biomass into renewable energy—it’s as if you could charge your phone with a piece of fruit.
(Shortform note: Arguably, ads like this are particularly effective because they leverage the Zeigarnik effect. This is a psychological phenomenon in which an incomplete activity creates cognitive tension that persists in your mind until you finish it. If a consumer were to see an image that doesn’t make sense, this tension would drive them to satisfy their curiosity by investigating the image further.)
