Ogilvy on advertising assignment

Unless the headline sells the product, you have wasted 90 per cent of your money. The headlines that work best are the ones that promise he reader a benefit, or contain news such as the announcement of a new product. If the advertisement is aimed at a small group of people, put something in the headline to signal 7 them, such as women over thirty-five. Ogling also gives many tips on how make your illustrations work, with some of the most helpful being: Have a good subject for your illustration. Use story appeal if you can and if not, use your package as the subject of the illustration .

Use before and after photographs to show the end result of using the product. Keep the illustration simple and focus on one person. Use four color advertisements even though they cost more. Ogling also gives advice on the body copy of the advertisement. Some of his tips are: write as bayou are writing each reader a letter, write short sentences and avoid difficult words, write the copy in the form of a story, do not use brag and boast (my product the best), make the first paragraph grab the attention of the reader, and use testimonials which are more persuasive than puffery.

Whenever the advertising is for a little known country, it is important to give the people a lot of information in the advertisement such as the weather, language, food, etc. Charm and differentiation work well in tourism advertising. His next chapter focuses on business-to-business advertising. This type of advertising is for products that people buy for their companies, not for themselves. 9 Ogling says that the advertising techniques that work in business-to- business advertising are the same as the ones that work for consumer advertising, such as promising the reader a benefit, news, testimonials, and helpful information.

When you promise something, make sure it is important to the customer and make the promise specific. Testimonials work well when they come from experts in reputable companies. News also works well cause readers scan technical journals when looking for new products, so be sure to announce your news. Also, long copy actually attracts more readers than short copy. Business-to-business advertisers are turning increasingly to television because audiences of sports and news programs include a high percentage of business people. The next medium of advertising Ogling talks about is direct mail, which he calls his secret weapon.

Ogling prefers testing methods which measure the commercials ability to change brand preferences. It can also measure the ‘ wear-out’ of the advertising. Finally, research can tell how many people read the advertisements and how any remember them. Research can make your advertising produce more sales. One answer that research cannot answer is what price should be charged for the product. Split-run, not favored by researchers because it does not require their services, is a technique which Ogling prefers.

This is when two advertisements are written with different promise in the each headline and see which one gets more response from a free sample offer. Few copywriters share Silly’s likely for research. Among those who did not was Bill Branch, who thought research inhibited creativity. Ogling explains that is experience has been the opposite; research often led Ogling to good ideas, such as the eye patch in the Hathaway shirt campaign. Ogling next addresses marketing, which he claims to know little about. Ogling defines marketing as objectivity.

The principles and guidelines in his book still have not changed today, such as his methods for producing successful print advertising. The book is great at giving examples of everything Ogling talks about with all of the advertisement examples in the book. Whenever he talks about a certain point, such as Dove being designed to target women, he puts in an example of an advertisement used. The advertisements in the book also make it a lot more interesting to read. Some areas of weakness with his book applying to today is that it does not address he new medium of advertising, the internet and the sophistication of technology today.

Some of the advice Ogling gives on types of fonts to use in advertisements is outdated, because now everyone is familiar with all the fonts and can read them. Although there are some weaknesses in this book, it is a great book for learning about advertising from a very successful man, especially On producing print advertising. I would recommend this book to advertising students to read because it is a “ classic that should be dog eared and worn” (Amazon. Com). One reviewer on Amazon. Com who is an advertising professor described Gigolos book as a must read advertising book, with his ideas being timeless and his writing captivating.