Confessions of an Advertising Man

David Ogilvy

2 ideas

1. Headlines carry most of the ad's value

   On average five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy, so once you have written the headline you have spent eighty cents of your dollar. The headline therefore has to do the selling alone. It should name the product, promise the reader a benefit, and flag the prospects it is meant for, because most people will read nothing else.

2. Keep clients through attention to the relationship

   Ogilvy gave as much weight to keeping existing clients as to winning new ones, and his rules for doing so centered on the relationship. Among them: put senior people on the account, use the products you advertise, and don't take on competing brands. Rather than insisting on the same team no matter what, he advised moving an executive off the account when the client doesn't get along with him.

Save and mark ideas in the app