How do you really know if you’re a copywriter and not just someone who dabbles in writing ads?

It’s pretty easy to tell.

Little things like meals (and showers) cease to have the same importance when you’re in the heat of writing an ad.

David Ogilvy recounts spending ten days (10 DAYS!) at home doing nothing else but writing this ad for Puerto Rican Economic Development in 1955. [Read more…] about David Ogilvy and the 10 Day Home Confinement Ad

In the early 1970’s Ogilvy & Mather Direct unleashed a series of ‘house ads’ that netted several whale-sized clients.

House ads, of course, have nothing to do with real estate but refer to the advertising which agencies create  on their own behalves to gain and retain business.

“How To Launch New Products” was one in a series of a dozen or so masterful ads which showcased the enormous depth of O&M.

This ad explains the role of product, price, package, name and advertising in the launch process. What made these ads stand out is unlike other agencies, they had direct response at their foundation.

How does this apply to freelance copywriters today?

Well, thanks to the magnificent research capacity of the Internet, a freelancer today has the equivalent power of a small research department from 30 years ago. Combine this with the epic approach of these O&M house ads and a freelancer has everything he or she needs to keep clients knocking on the door.

These and over 100 other “house ads” from the greatest agencies are forthcoming in the Ultimate Online Swipe File.

To save the 292 KB PDF of “How To Launch New Products” to your hard drive, right click on the image and choose “Save target as” or “Save link as.”

One of the first in a long series of house ads for Ogilvy and Mather.

This one was published in 1966 shortly after Ogilvy became a public company.

Ogilvy & Mather unleashed a series of “house ads” in the late 60’s to early 70’s, which dazzled readers with its depth, and hooked more whale-sized clients than any house ads before or since. Many tens of millions were spent on these insertions in major publications worldwide.

If you could pass through a time machine and transport to any agency of your choice, the direct response division of O&M, during the late 60’s-early 70’s, is where you’d want to be. Drayton Bird, Gary Bencivenga and David Deutch are all O&M alumni from around this time.

“How To Create Advertising That Sells” is a remarkable 1,909 words long and draws on the direct response foundation laid by Claude Hopkins, John Caples and the statistical polling methodology David Ogilvy learned at Gallup.

You can find Ogilvy’s commentary on this series of ads on page 65 of “Ogilvy On Advertising.” What…you don’t have “Ogilvy On Advertising?” I’m barring your IP address from this site until you get it…especially since you’re one of the few who possesses this ad word-for-word. And in case you haven’t looked at the book in a while, a sharpshooter assisted by an electron microscope would be challenged to make out the body copy in the ad.

It seems the O&M series saw fewer and fewer insertions as Ogilvy’s influence over the agency weakened with time. However, these ads certainly left their mark.

You can find a list of the other ads in the series here.

Besides clients, other agencies were inspired by these bold space ads. Several agencies spun off their own versions, in the spirit of the house of Ogilvy. One series that comes to mind was a 1980’s advertising partnership between The Wall Street Journal and a rotation of Madison Avenue agencies under the slogan, “The Wall Street Journal. It works.”

So, while it’s true a freelancer could never handle the corporate giants these ads were designed to attract, far bigger and better paying clients await those with the guts and know-how to put this kind of ad together today. And with the 24/7 research power of the Internet, it’s possible to assemble the kind of data which once took whole departments, mere decades ago.

Moreover, aren’t we all getting a little fatigued reading the same type of customer acquisition sales letters, promising the six secrets of psychological persuasion (and the like), some writer has labored months over.

Here’s the O&M masterpiece, “How To Create Advertising That Sells,” in its original format.

How to Create Advertising that Sells

By David Ogilvy

Ogilvy & Mather has created over $1,480,000,000 worth of advertising. Here, with all the dogmatism of brevity are 38 of the things we have learned.

1.  The most important decision. We have learned that the effect of your advertising on your sales depends more on this decision than on any other: how should you position your product? Should you position Schweppes as a soft drink – or as a mixer?  Should you position Dove as a product for dry skin or as a product which gets hands really clean?  The results of your campaign depend less on how we write your advertising than how your product is positioned.  It follows that positioning should be decided before the advertising is created.  Research can help.  Look before you leap.

2.  Large promise. The second most important decision is this:  what should you promise the customer?  A promise is not a claim, or a theme, or a slogan.  It is a benefit for the consumer.  It pays to promise a benefit which is unique and competitive, and the product must deliver the benefit your promise.  Most advertising promises nothing.  It is doomed to fail in the marketplace.  “Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement”  – said Samuel Johnson.

3.  Brand image. Every advertisement should contribute to the complex symbol which is the brand image.  95% of all advertising is created ad hoc.  Most products lack any consistent image from one year to another.  The manufacturer who dedicates his advertising to building the most sharply defined personality for his brand gets the largest share of the market.

4. Big ideas. Unless your advertising is built on a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night. It takes a big idea to jolt the consumer out of his indifference – to make him notice your advertising, remember it and take action. Big ideas are usually simple ideas. Said Charles Kettering, the great General Motors inventor: “this problem, when solved, will be simple.” Big, simple ideas are not easy to come by. They require genius – and midnight oil. A truly big one can be continued for 20 years – like our eye patch for Hathaway shirts.

5. A first-class ticket. It pays to give most products an image of quality – a first-class ticket. Ogilvy & Mather  has been conspicuously successful in doing this – for Pepperidge, Hathaway, Mercedes Benz, Schweppes, Dove and others. If your advertising looks ugly, consumers will conclude that  your product is shoddy and they will be less likely to buy it.

6. Don’t be a bore. Nobody was ever bored into buying a product. Yet most advertising is impersonal, detached, cold – and dull. It pays to involve the customer. Talk to her like a human being. Charm her. Make her hungry. Get her to participate.

7. Innovate. Start trends – instead of following them. Advertising which follows a fashionable fad or is imitative, is seldom successful. It pays to innovate, to blaze new trails. But innovation is risky unless you pre-test your innovation with consumers. Look before you leap.

8.  Be suspicious of awards. The pursuit of creative awards seduces creative people from the pursuit of sales.  We have been unable to establish any correlation whatever between awards and sales.  At Ogilvy and Mather, we now give an annual award for the campaign which contributes the most to sales. Successful advertising sells the product without drawing attention to itself, it rivets the consumer’s attention on the product.  Make the product the hero of your advertising.

9.  Psychological Segmentation. Any good agency knows how to position products for demographic segments of the market – for men, for young children, for farmers in the south, etc.  But Ogilvy and Mather has learned that it often pays to position for psychological segments of the market.  Our Mercedes-Benz advertising is positioned to fit non-conformists who scoff at “status symbols” and reject flim-flam appeals to snobbery.

10.  Don’t bury news. It is easier to interest the consumer in a product when it is new than at any other point in its life.  Many copywriters have a fatal instinct for burying news.  That is why most advertising for new products fails to exploit the opportunity that genuine news provides.  It pays to launch your new product with a loud boom-boom.

11.  Go the whole hog. Most advertising campaigns are too complicated.  They reflect a long list of marketing objectives.  They embrace the divergent views of too many executives.  By attempting too many things, they achieve nothing.  It pays to boil down your strategy to one simple promise – and go the whole hog in delivering that promise.

What Works Best In Television

12.  Testimonials. Avoid irrelevant celebrities.  Testimonial commercials are almost always successful – if you make them credible.  Either celebrities or real people can be effective.  But avoid irrelevant celebrities whose fame has no natural connection with your product or your customers.  Irrelevant celebrities steal attention from your product.

13. Problem-solution (don’t cheat!) You set up a problem that the consumer recognizes. And you show how your product can solve that problem. And you prove the solution. This technique has always been above average in sales results, and it still is. But don’t use it unless you can do so without cheating: the consumer isn’t a moron. She is your wife.

14. Visual demonstrations. If they are honest, visual demonstrations are generally effective in the marketplace. It pays to visualize your promise. It saves time. It drives the promise home. It is memorable.

15. Slice of life. These playlets are corny, and most copywriters detect them. But they have sold a lot of merchandise, and are still selling.

16. Avoid logorrhea. Make your pictures tell the story. What you show is more important than what you say. Many commercials drown the viewer in a torrent of words. We call that logorrhea, (rhymes with diarrhea.) We have created some great commercials without words.

17. On-camera voice. Commercials using on-camera voice do significantly better than commercials using voice over.

18.  Musical Backgrounds. Most commercials use musical backgrounds.  However, on the average, musical backgrounds reduce recall of your commercial.  Very few creative people accept this.   But we never heard of an agency using musical background under a new business presentation.

19.  Stand-ups. The stand-up pitch can be effective, if it is delivered with straightforward honesty.

20.  Burr of singularity. The average consumer now sees 20,000 commercials a year; poor dear.  Most of them slide off her memory like water off a duck’s back.  Give your commercials a flourish of singularity, a burr that will stick in the consumer’s mind.  One such burr is the mnemonic device or relevant symbol – like the crowns in our commercials for Imperial Magazine.

21.  Animation and cartoons. Less than 5% of television commercials use cartoons or animation.  They are less persuasive than live commercials.  The consumer can not identify herself with the character in the cartoon and cartoon’s do not invite belief.  However, Carson-Roberts, our partners in Los Angeles, tell us that animation can be helpful when you are talking to children.  They should know, they have addressed more than 600 commercials to children.

22.  Salvage commercials. Many commercials which test poorly can be salvaged.  The faults revealed by the test can be corrected.  We have doubled the effectiveness of a commercial simply be re-editing it.

23.  Factual versus emotional. Factual commercials tend to be more effective than than emotional commercials.  However, Ogilvy & Mather has made some emotional commercials, which have been successful in the marketplace.  Among these are our campaigns for Maxwell House Coffee and Hershey’s Milk Chocolate.

24.  Grabbers. We have found that commercials with an exciting opening hold their audience at a higher level than commercials which begin quietly.

What Works Best In Print?

25. Headline. On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy.  It follows that, if you don’t sell the product in your headline, you have wasted 80% of your money.  That is why most Ogilvy and Mather headlines include the brand name and the promise.

26.  Benefited headline. Headlines that promise to benefit sell more than those that don’t.

27.  News and headlines. Time after time we have found that it pays to inject genuine news into headlines.  The consumer is always on the lookout for new products or new improvements in an old product, or new ways to use an old product.  Economists – even Russian economists – approve of this.  They call it “informative” advertising.  So do consumers.

28.  Simple headlines. Your headline should telegraph what you want to say – in simple language.  Readers do not stop to decipher the meanings of obscure headlines.

29.  How many words in a headline? In headline tests conducted with cooperation from a big department store, it was found that headlines of 10 words or longer sold more goods than short headlines.  In terms of recall, headlines between 8-and-10 words are most effective.  In mail order advertising, headlines between 6-and-12 words get the must coupon returns.  On the average, long headlines sell more merchandise than short ones – headlines like our “At 60 miles an hour, the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.”

30.  Localize headlines. In local advertising, it pays to include the name of the city in your headline.

31.  Select your prospects. When you advertise your product which is consumed by a special group, it pays to flag that group in your headline – mothers, bedwetters, going to Europe?

32. Yes, people read long copy. Readership falls off rapidly up to 50 words, but drops very little between 50 and 500 words (this page contains 1,909 words, and you are reading it). Ogilvy & Mather has used long copy – with notable success – from Mercedes Benz, Cessna Citation, Merrill Lynch, and Shell Gasoline. “The more you tell, the more sell.”

33. Story appeal and picture. Ogilvy & Mather has gotten noticeable results with photographs, which suggest the story. The reader glances at the photograph and asks himself, “what goes on here?” Then he reads the copy to find out. Harold Rudolph called this magic element “story appeal.” The more of it you inject into your photograph, the more people look at your advertisements. It is easier said than done.

34. Before and after. Before and after advertisements are somewhat above average in attention value. Any form of visualized contrast seems to work well.

35. Photographs versus art work. Ogilvy & Mather has found that photographs work better than drawing – almost invariably. They attract more readers, generate more appetite appeal, are more believable, are better remembered, pull more coupons, and sell more merchandise.

36. Use captions to sell. On the average, twice as many people read the captions under photographs as read the body copies. It follows that you should never use a photograph without putting a caption under it; and each caption should be a miniature advertisement for the product – complete with the brand name and promise.

Number 37: Editorial layout. Ogilvy & Mather has had more success with editorial layouts, than with addy Layouts. Editorial layouts get higher readership than conventional advertisements.

Number 38: Repeat your winners. Scores of great advertisements have been discarded before they have begun to pay off.  Readership can actually increase with repetition – up to five repetitions.

Is this all we know?

These findings apply for most categories of products. But, not to all. Ogilvy & Mather has developed a separate and specialized body of knowledge on what makes for success in advertising food products, tourist destinations, proprietary medicines, children’s products – and other classifications. But, this special information is revealed only to the clients of Ogilvy & Mather.

Joint venture partnerships are so ripe with possibilities and stacked with leverage, one could focus exclusively on them — while ignoring almost everything else — and still be reasonably successful in business.

I’ve been on the ropes more than once and was brought back to life by working with a few, select JV partners. The enthusiasm and fresh perspective of a good JV partner can be almost equal in value to a responsive list paired with a killer endorsement.

However, in the Internet marketing arena, nowadays, the JV process is by and large narrow…almost to the point of being mechanical. Think of the numerous messages about the latest launch that plague our inboxes each week. I call launches, which are nothing more than multiple, synchronized joint ventures, “assume the position marketing.”

You know how these messages typically go. “The doors to the site open next Friday at 11:00 am EST…and there are only 1000 available but we’ll sell out fast…so make sure you get on the early notification list so you can be one of the lucky few to snag the fast action bonuses….etc.”

These launches are nowhere near as effective as they were a few years ago. Since I’m an outsider in their world, several of the better known names have confided this to me. It was no surprise. After all, even the least perceptive prospect, who’s usually a marketer himself, is not Pavlov’s dog and recognizes fake scarcity when he sees it. As evidence, look at the emails from the last few launches practically begging you to buy, after the program has “sold out.”

Good marketers are critical thinkers and even contrarian to a degree.

My friend, Bill, who’s a talented marketer, reminded me of Cialdini’s lesson about scarcity in his landmark book, “Influence.”

In his words: “Cialdini talks about scarcity and how it can be a powerful tool of influence when it is genuine. He cautions, however, against being a “smuggler,” attempting to induce scarcity when it is not real.”

I’m certainly going back for a refresher read of “Influence.” Because it makes more sense aligning our marketing practices with the conclusions derived from Dr. Cialdini’s work, rather than trying to bend them to fit some superficial marketing tactic du jour.

So what’s all this have to do with an ad David Ogilvy wrote in 1965 for Reader’s Digest?

Good question.

I’ve just come across a whole series of space ads which were “advertising joint ventures” in the purest sense. Unlike the most common jv’s in which a list owner endorses a partner’s product or service and takes a cut of the sales, these jv’s relied on the high reputation of two partners in different yet complimentary realms.

“Confessions Of A Magazine Reader” is the earliest advertising joint venture I’m aware of. The image of both David Ogilvy and Reader’s Digest is enhanced by this ad. Notice that Ogilvy signs his name to it, so you can be sure the copy wasn’t churned out in an hour.

From “Confessions Of A Magazine Reader”:

Ogilvy on Reader’s Digest and billboard advertising:

They crusade against cigarettes, which kill people. They crusade against billboards which make the world hideous. They crusade against boxing which turns men into vegetables. They crusade against pornography.

Given how ubiquitous porn is, it’s doubtful either party would have much to say if the ad were written today. But what would Ogilvy think about advertising in public restrooms?

Ogilvy on Reader’s Digest and highbrows:

Some highbrows may look down their noses at The Digest, charging it with superficiality and over-simplification. Their is a modicum of justice in this charge; you can learn more about the Congo if you read about it in Foreign Affairs Quarterly and you can learn more about Abraham Lincoln in Carl Sandburg’s book about him. But have you the time?

Never boring

I seldom read a highbrow magazine without wishing that a Digest editor had worked his will upon it. I would then find it more readable. The Digest articles are never long-winded, never obscure, never boring.

The “reason why” in the footnote is a nice touch. Shortly after this ad was published, came the explosion of O&M house ads. So, it’s possible the ad itself was more than sufficient “payment” for Ogilvy’s work.

Though the bullets are far from remarkable under a 2008 lens, this is surely a headline which compelled more people to read a footnote than any other.

“Every Secret But One In This Book”

The debate about the effectiveness of long copy verses short copy seems like it could rage on for another century.

In part, it’s fueled by those with a vested interest in promoting long copy. They refuse to admit that sometimes when you have a widget for sale, the best approach is to write a three word ad: “widget for sale.”

And if you market online, you’ll notice the effectiveness of the long scrolling sales letter has taken a nose dive. All you have to do is look at your web metrics and you’ll notice visitors fleeing these pages in droves.

So what’s the answer?

Creating shorter landing pages that look more like “space ads” than direct mail letters is one approach.

Most important is creating irresistible, low cost front end products or self-liquidating offers that allow you to capture the postal address of your prospects. Once you have this, no spam filter can block your message and your long form sales letter has infinitely more power when it’s in your prospects’ hands verses the fleeting moments it’s on their screens.

As you know by now, the answer to the long copy verses short question is it depends on your market, offer, product and list. And testing is the only way to know.

Here, in my view, is the best and most succinct explanation about the merits of long copy written 33 years ago by David Ogilvy.

From: “How To Create Industrial Advertising That Sells”

Ogilvy & Mather answers a common question about long copy

Ogilvy & Mather has prepared many industrial advertisements with very long copy. Yet readership research shows that the vast majority of the readers of any advertisement never get beyond the headline.

Since so few people read the copy at all why does Ogilvy & Mather recommend long copy so often?

The answer is that those relatively few people who read the copy are prospects for your product or your service.

If you aren’t in the market for a product you are unlikely to read an advertisement for it, no matter how long or short the copy. (Most readers of the Wall Street Journal have little interest in industrial advertising or Ogilvy & Mather. Chances are they haven’t read this far.)

But real prospects — especially industrial prospects responsible for spending large sums — are hungry for information. Research shows that industrial advertisements with really long copy actually tend to get read more throughly then advertisements with shorter copy.

You might be able to sell a candy bar with very short copy but you could never make a case for buying a Cessna Citation in a handful of words.

Here is a large version of: How to Create Industrial Advertising That Sells.

Here’s what David Ogilvy says of the famous “house ads” run by Ogilvy and Mather in the 60’s and 70’s:

“Left alone, copywriters write ads to impress other copywriters, and art directors make layouts to impress other art directors.

The purpose of my ads was to project the agency as knowing more about advertising. You may argue that this strategy was ill-advised, knowledge being no guarantee of “creativity.” But at least it was unique, because no other agency could have run such advertisements — they lacked the required knowledge.

My ads not only promised useful information, they provided it. And they worked — in many countries. ”

Ogilvy and Mather’s House Ads Are the Ultimate Swipeable Ads for the
‘Whale Hunting’ Freelancer Today

David Ogilvy took maximum advantage of his first job in the States as a pollster with Gallup to create mammoth ads that landed whale-sized clients.

After reading one of these ads, you’re left feeling there couldn’t possibly be another agency on the planet that can hold a candle to Ogilvy and Mather.

Sure, there were excellent house ads by other agencies — like Sackheim & Co. and Schwab and Beatty — created long before these, but they paled in comparison to the boldness of Ogilvy’s ads. Ogilvy crammed so much information, statistics and test results into these ads that they were a tour de force in print.

From a direct response marketer’s or freelancer’s point of view, the later ads by O&M aren’t of interest. David Ogilvy had faded into the background and O&M drifted from the direct response bedrock that defined their success. They looked like any other Madison Avenue agency.

Interestingly, Foote, Cone and Belding successfully used this approach in a joint advertising venture with the “Wall Street Journal” several years after O&M stopped running these magnificent house ads.

Gary Bencivenga also penned a memorable John L. Sullivan style challenge in the mold of Ogilvy and Mather’s house ads while copy chief of Dan Rosenthal’s ad agency.

How Does a Freelancer Use These Ads Today?

If you’ve got the appetite for swallowing a whale, the O&M house ads need to be in your swipe file. Model these ads and use the startling power of online databases as your research department.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a one man shop. It’s the boldness of the approach that counts and the perception that you’re the ultimate advertising authority.

With some judicious use of outsourcing that you’ve vetted before you go to print and you’re ready to land a whale. Don’t forget to aggressively pursue remnant or distressed ad space to make this an ultra-low cost undertaking.

Here is a large verison of: How to Create Industrial Advertising That Sells.

The famous House Ads of Ogilvy and Mather:

• How David Ogilvy Can Make Even Better Television Commercials (1964)

• How To Make Successful Television Commercials (1974)

• Ogilvy & Mather Reports on Its First Year (April 1967)

• Ogilvy & Mather Reports on a Most Successful Year (April 1968)

• Ogilvy & Mather Reports on Its Most Successful Year to Date (April 1969)

• Ogilvy & Mather Reports on Its Most Profitable Year (April 1970)

• How To Create Industrial Advertising That Sells (November 1974)

• How To Create Advertising That Sells (1972)

• How to Launch New Products (1973)

• How to Create Financial Advertising that Sells (1974)

• Direct Response Advertising Can Increase Your Sales and Profits (1974)

• Ogilvy Orchestration: What today’s advertisers should expect from their agencies (1985)

• David Ogilvy: I believe that the purpose of everything we do should be this – to improve our services to our clients (1984)

• Ogilvy is on the Move (1989)