What makes an advertisement effective in today’s crowded marketplace? How can marketers create campaigns that drive sales while building lasting brand value?
David Ogilvy’s Confessions of an Advertising Man is packed full of time-tested wisdom from decades of his experience in the advertising industry. His insights cover everything from crafting compelling headlines to managing client relationships and building successful agencies.
Keep reading to discover the proven strategies that helped Ogilvy become one of the most influential advertisers of all time.
Overview of David Ogilvy’s Confessions of an Advertising Man
David Ogilvy’s Confessions of an Advertising Man distills the wisdom he picked up over decades in the advertising industry. If you’re looking to succeed in advertising, this book will serve you well, whether you’re just starting your career or you’re the head of an agency.
Ogilvy (1911-1999) was a British marketer who founded the advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather in 1948. It became one of the best-known advertising agencies in the world. The firm created lucrative campaigns for major companies like American Express and Rolls-Royce. Confessions of an Advertising Man (1963) was his first book, followed by the similarly instructional Ogilvy on Advertising (1985).
We’ll begin our overview by outlining the basics of successful advertising—What specific qualities make an advertisement effective? Then, we’ll broaden our scope by explaining how to use effective ads to drive profits with a long-term marketing strategy. Turning to the administrative side of advertising, we’ll discuss how to manage a team of advertisers and build relationships with clients. Finally, we’ll reveal what ambitious marketers can do to rise quickly in an advertising agency.
The Basics of Creating Effective Advertising
Let’s start with some foundational advice for any marketer. How do you write an advertisement that makes people want to buy something? We’ll outline Ogilvy’s three key elements of a successful ad, explore the art of writing effective headlines, and explain how to create persuasive body text and images for an ad.
Effective Ads Are Honest, Informational, and Interesting
First, Ogilvy argues that the best advertisements are honest. If a customer buys a product because of your ad and finds it inferior to what you promised, it damages your client’s brand image and compromises future sales.
Second, 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 offer ads that look and sound nice but lack substantial information about the product. These ads come across as insults to consumers’ intelligence and are less likely to make sales.
Last, Ogilvy says the best ads are original and interesting. The marketplace is riddled with ads, and only those that seize viewers’ interest will break through the noise. Create ads that stand out from the crowd and are genuinely enjoyable to read or watch.
Writing an Effective Headline
Ogilvy believes that the most crucial component of an ad is the headline, the large text at the top of an ad that attracts consumers’ attention. Your headline needs to be as strong as possible because many consumers read only the headline to decide whether to engage with the rest of the ad. A captivating headline can earn you sales by drawing readers into a persuasive sales pitch in the rest of your ad.
This isn’t a given, however. No matter how good your headline is, some consumers will read it and ignore the rest of your ad. For this reason, Ogilvy contends that your headline should function as a complete advertisement in itself. It should be honest, be interesting enough to grab people’s attention, communicate a clear benefit of the product, and prominently feature the brand name.
Furthermore, headlines need to be simple and instantly comprehensible. If a headline is too complex or takes too long to decode, the audience will lose interest and move on—no matter how clever it is.
Every Ad Needs a Big Idea
Ogilvy notes that it’s not easy to create an ad that’s original and interesting enough to grab people’s attention, conveys a specific benefit of the product, and has an instantly comprehensible headline. To accomplish all this with just a handful of words, you need a unifying concept for your ad—a simple idea that naturally connects all these dots.
For example, Ogilvy explains that the best ad headline he ever wrote was, “At Sixty Miles an Hour, the Loudest Noise in the New Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.” This headline is short and simple, yet it’s interesting and original enough to grab people’s attention. And it communicates a specific benefit of the car—its well-designed, silent engine.
How do you generate ideas like this? According to Ogilvy, you discover these ideas primarily through intuitive exploration and creative inspiration rather than clear-cut logical reasoning. To open yourself to ideas from your unconscious mind, enjoy a wide variety of leisure activities whenever you’re out of the office. Often, good ideas unexpectedly crop up when you give your brain time to rest, even if you’re doing something totally unrelated to advertising. For instance, you might spontaneously come up with a tagline for your campaign selling mountain bikes while attending your niece’s birthday party.
Crafting the Body of an Ad
Ogilvy asserts that, once your headline has drawn in the reader, 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.
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.
Long-Term Advertising Strategy
Now that we’ve discussed the art of creating compelling ads, let’s zoom out. Ogilvy explains how to strategically knit these ads into a broader marketing plan to boost profits over the long run. We’ll discuss three of Ogilvy’s tips.
Tip #1: Reinforce a Brand Image
The best advertisements don’t just persuade consumers that a product is valuable; they also support long-term strategy by reinforcing the brand image. A brand image is the cumulative impression a brand makes in the minds of consumers over years of advertising. Ogilvy argues that the stronger and more distinct a brand’s image is, the more often consumers will choose to buy it over a competitor.
According to Ogilvy, the key to strengthening brand image is offering consistency over time. The most effective ads magnify and reinforce an existing brand image rather than reinvent it. This is why so many of the world’s biggest brands—such as Coca-Cola and McDonald’s—have maintained the same brand image for decades.
Ogilvy points out that when developing a distinct brand image, it’s inevitable that the brand will appeal more to some demographics than others. For instance, a clothing brand that positions itself as cutting-edge may naturally alienate older and more traditional customers. To some extent, this is necessary. Trying to make a brand that appeals equally to everyone will result in a brand with no distinctiveness at all—one that gets overlooked.
Tip #2: Always Test Your Advertisements
Ogilvy asserts that you must test your advertising on consumers before launching a campaign. This process allows you to identify and correct any major flaws with your ads early on. If you fail to test thoroughly enough and you launch a campaign with glaring faults, it will damage your brand image and significantly decrease sales. For instance, you might discover that test audiences aren’t hooked by the headline of a new magazine ad campaign for a kitchen appliance, allowing you to rewrite it before rolling it out.
Tip #3: Repeat Successful Ads
When an ad is successful, keep running it until it ceases to generate sales. Every time you run the same ad, it’ll reach some new consumers who weren’t in the market for your product before, and it’ll often be just as effective on them as it was for others in the past. According to Ogilvy, many brands make the mistake of frequently rotating their ads because they feel like they need something new. In doing so, they cut short the lifespan of every successful ad.
Leading an Advertising Firm
So far, we’ve discussed how to create successful ads and weave them into an effective long-term strategy. Now, let’s discuss the management side of the advertising business. Here are three of Ogilvy’s tips on how to effectively lead an advertising agency.
Tip #1: When Hiring, Scout for Creative Talent Above All Else
According to Ogilvy, the number one reason his agency succeeded was because he was gifted at identifying and hiring the most creative marketers. He argues that truly creative people possess unique qualities that others lack—qualities that are necessary for an agency’s success.
Creative people are more in touch with their subconscious mind and imagination, which helps them come up with more winning ideas. Additionally, creative people are skilled at seeing any situation from multiple perspectives, which allows them to discover and share insights that most people would never think of. For instance, if a creative person is designing an ad for mousetraps, they might wonder what cats (who also catch mice) think of them. This could inspire them to design an ad where a housecat files for unemployment, complaining that the client’s high-quality mousetraps put them out of a job.
On the other hand, Ogilvy admits that creative people tend to be more rebellious and contrarian than the average person. Although this can make them difficult to work with, he recommends doing whatever you can to keep them around anyway. The creative results they produce are almost always worth the hassle.
Tip #2: Clearly Communicate Your Expectations to Employees
Ogilvy explains that once you’ve recruited a highly creative team, your job as a manager is to build a creative-friendly culture that allows them to do great work. To do this, communicate to your employees a clear set of guidelines for how to act at work. Because you’re their boss, your employees will naturally seek your approval. Thus, they’re likely to act the way you encourage them to.
Ogilvy, for instance, tells his employees that he wants them to respect one another, honestly and openly resolve their disagreements, and enjoy working hard. He believes that if employees live up to these expectations, it’ll create the positive and productive atmosphere necessary for creative work.
Tip #3: Protect Your Agency’s Reputation
Finally, Ogilvy notes that it’s important to protect your advertising agency’s reputation. Every ad you create shows the world how skilled your agency is. Without a reputation for consistently making ads that sell, you won’t be able to secure major clients or attract high-quality employees.
To protect your reputation, don’t tailor your ads to clients’ requests if their ideas will genuinely ruin the ad. It’s better to lose a client than to let them pressure you into putting out bad work.
Ogilvy also cautions against partnering with clients who sell flawed products or are otherwise destined for failure. If your client’s business fails, some people will inevitably blame your advertising, unjustly staining your reputation. To avoid falling into this trap, only accept a client if you’re confident you can run a successful campaign for them.
Working With Clients
Once you’ve found clients who will help you build your agency’s reputation, how do you convince them to hire you? We’ll discuss how to attract new clients and maintain great relationships with your current ones.
How to Earn New Clients
There’s no single, surefire way to earn a client’s business. Ogilvy explains that every client is different, and you’ll need to employ different strategies to win their trust. Try to understand the unique ways that each client thinks, and you’ll have a better chance of convincing them to hire your agency.
Although Ogilvy emphasizes that the process of earning a potential client’s trust will look different every time, he offers a couple of strategies that work in the majority of cases. First, being an active listener in conversation often makes people perceive you as insightful, which reflects well on your agency. The less you speak, the more respect you’ll gain.
Ogilvy also suggests being honest and vulnerable with clients by admitting your agency’s weaknesses. This honesty will make you seem more trustworthy and respectable. For example, if your agency is new and lacks the track record of an established firm, confess this to potential clients rather than hiding your inexperience.
If you’re founding a new agency, your first few clients will be the toughest to secure because you lack the positive reputation of an established firm. Ogilvy encourages you to compensate for this disadvantage by working harder than anyone else. One way to do this is by developing speculative advertising campaigns for prospective clients, pro bono. Clients are more likely to take a chance on your new agency once you show them what your campaign for them would look like.
How to Keep Clients Happy
Once you’ve secured deals with a number of clients, the key to your agency’s success is keeping those clients happy. Maintaining ongoing relationships with clients is the primary way to keep your agency in business, and Ogilvy offers a few tips for how to do so.
Tip #1: Be Reliable
First, Ogilvy argues that upholding your commitments—particularly deadlines—is absolutely necessary to maintain a client’s trust and respect. If your team fails to deliver on their basic promises to the client, your reputation as a reliable professional will collapse.
Tip #2: Build Personal Connections
According to Ogilvy, forging personal relationships with clients is also crucial to keeping their business. The more that employees throughout your agency work alongside people at all levels of your client’s organization and genuinely connect with them, the less likely the client is to sever ties.
Tip #3: Make Your Clients Your Top Priority
Make sure that your top employees concentrate on pleasing your existing clients rather than scouting for new ones. Ogilvy asserts that your best marketers will be tempted to look for more lucrative clients than those they already have, but don’t let them—putting your current clients on the backburner will lose their trust and endanger your business. Ideally, every client should feel like they’re your organization’s first priority.
Tip #4: Prepare Backup Campaigns
Finally, Ogilvy recommends preparing a specific emergency precaution to reduce the chances that a client will fire you. Every time you create a campaign for a client, prepare an entire second campaign as a backup. If your first campaign underperforms or your client decides they dislike it, having a second option immediately at your disposal will make it more likely you’ll get a second chance. Taking this precaution requires a lot of time and money, but if it can save you a client, it’s worth it.
Tip #5: Remember That It’s Impossible to Keep Every Client Happy
Although there’s plenty you can do to keep clients happy, Ogilvy acknowledges that it’s impossible to satisfy all of them all the time. Losses are inevitable. Clients may switch agencies in search of novelty or due to other factors beyond your control. Therefore, continually scout for new clients (even though satisfying your existing clients should be your first priority).
Climbing the Corporate Ladder
We’ve discussed what it takes to be an effective leader in an advertising agency—but what if you’re not yet in a leadership position? We’ll conclude this overview with Ogilvy’s advice to up-and-coming marketers who want to know how to rise through the ranks at an agency.
According to Ogilvy, the way to earn a promotion is to work harder and create more ads than any of your peers. By being the best—putting in the extra hours, honing your skills, and demonstrating all-around superior performance—you can attract the attention of executives looking for the next advertising prodigy. Managers are always looking for the most promising individuals because they understand that standout ads are almost always the brainchild of a single advertiser, not a team.
That said, don’t make it obvious to your peers that you’re primarily focusing on impressing managers. If your coworkers perceive you as an adversary, they may sabotage your chances of promotion. Maintain cordial relationships, but stay focused on your work as an individual.
If you want to attract managers’ attention by putting in extra hours at work, how should you spend them? Ogilvy recommends researching your clients’ products and industries more than anyone else—even your bosses. The more you understand about the product you’re advertising, the more persuasive and effective your campaigns will be.
Last, Ogilvy encourages honesty and transparency, even when you make a mistake. Owning up to your errors can help you earn respect and trust from your coworkers and clients, further distinguishing you as an exceptional employee who should be promoted.
