Ogilvy on Advertising

If you make your ads look like editorial pages, you will get more readers. Far more.

If you can scrape up the money, use space advertising as well, but don’t start it unless you mean to do it consistently. Young & Rubicam advertised in every issue of Fortune for 40 years.

‘Consumers mostly ignore advertising for brands they are not already using.’

If you want to know more about direct response, start by reading Successful Direct Marketing Methods by Bob Stone, published by Crain Books in Chicago.

to the incalculable benefit of their clients.

If you have to set very long copy, there are some typographical devices which increase its readership: 1 A subhead of two lines, between your headline and your body copy, heightens the reader’s appetite for the feast to come. 2 If you start your body copy with a drop-initial, you increase readership by an average of 13 per cent. 3 Limit your openin

The best of all ways to beat P&G is, of course, to market a better product.

I am convinced that if all advertisers were to follow the example of their direct response brethren, they would get more sales per dollar. Every copywriter should start his career by spending two years in direct response.

In print advertisements, your headline is the most important element. The other day I saw one headline produce five times as many orders as another. If your headline promises your strongest and most distinct benefit, you are on your way to success. Good photographs of your product cost more than bad ones, but they also sell more. When you want to s