What makes a headline truly captivating? How can you craft words that not only grab attention but also drive sales?
David Ogilvy’s headlines have shaped modern advertising and continue to influence writers today. His principles for creating powerful headlines extend beyond advertising into every form of written communication, from work emails to blog posts.
Read on to explore how you can harness these time-tested techniques to make your writing more engaging and effective.
David Ogilvy on Headlines
According to David Ogilvy, headlines are the most crucial component of an ad. A headline is 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.
| All Writing Should Use an Effective “Headline” Arguably, you can apply Ogilvy’s principles for writing effective headlines to improve any kind of writing. In The Pyramid Principle, Barbara Minto argues that the introduction to any piece of writing needs to immediately state its conclusion in a clear and engaging way—just as Ogilvy argues that your ad’s headline needs to be an instantly comprehensible, interesting summary of your entire advertisement. Whether you’re crafting an ad or any other kind of writing, summing up your conclusion at the beginning allows readers to immediately understand what you’re trying to say. Minto contends that if you fail to do this, readers will struggle to identify your conclusion as they read—a slow, mentally taxing process. This flawed structure makes your ideas and arguments seem weaker than they are. Ogilvy emphasizes that a preview-headline can lure readers into the rest of the ad, but Minto contends that a preview can also be valuable for its potential to push away those who don’t need to read it. In other words, previewing your argument allows readers to decide whether they want to keep reading. For example, if you send a work email immediately stating that people in a certain office building need to start taking out their own trash, it allows everyone who doesn’t work in that office building to ignore the email. For this reason, Minto argues that writing previews is a courtesy. |
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.
(Shortform note: Arguably, one of the surest ways to naturally accomplish all these goals in a short advertisement is to make your ad into a story. In Building a StoryBrand, Donald Miller argues that because stories follow a familiar, relatable structure, audiences can easily digest and understand them—making it easy to communicate a product’s specific benefits. Additionally, the human brain is wired to find stories interesting, so they demand attention. For instance, you might find Ogilvy’s Rolls-Royce ad more compelling if it was written as a story: “Sarah thought she hated the sound of cars…until she heard my Rolls-Royce.”)
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.
(Shortform note: In A Mind for Numbers, Barbara Oakley offers a neurological explanation for Ogilvy’s idea-generation strategy. She explains that the brain alternates between two modes of thinking—focused and diffuse. The focused mode is associated with rapid, detail-oriented thinking. In contrast, the diffuse mode involves more expansive, open-ended thinking, which is better for generating creative ideas and solutions to difficult problems. Engaging in a variety of leisure activities relaxes the focused mind, which shifts the brain into diffuse mode. This allows novel connections and ideas to emerge spontaneously from your subconscious mind.)
Exercise
Do you agree with Ogilvy that the best ideas arise from the unconscious mind when you’re occupied with something else? Why or why not? What creative process do you find gives you the best ideas?
