Monthly Archive for October, 2009

David Ogilvy’s Rules on How To Build Great Campaigns

Published on October 31, 2009 in leadership + management and marketing + advertising. 0 Comments

I recently read Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy.

Here are his rules on…

How To Build Great Campaigns:

  1. What you say is more important than how you say it.
  2. Unless your campaign is built around a great idea, it will flop.
  3. Give the facts. (The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife. You insult her intelligence if you assume that a mere slogan and a few vapid adjectives will persuade her to buy anything.)
  4. You cannot bore people into buying.
  5. Be well-mannered, but don’t clown. (You should try to charm the consumer into buying.)
  6. Make your advertising contemporary.
  7. Committees can criticize advertisements, but they cannot write them.
  8. If you are lucky enough to write a good advertisement, repeat it until it stops pulling.
  9. Never write an advertisement which you wouldn’t want your own family to read.
  10. The image and the brand. (Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image.)
  11. Don’t be a copy-cat.

David Ogilvy’s Rules on How To Be A Good Client

Published on October 30, 2009 in leadership + management, marketing + advertising and sales and selling. 0 Comments

I recently read Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy, and thought it was an awesome book about the advertising business, even if it was written in the 60s by a man who started an agency in 1952.

Here are his rules on…

How To Be A Good Client:

  1. Emancipate your agency from fear.
  2. Select the right agency in the first place.
  3. Brief your agency very thoroughly indeed.
  4. Do not compete with your agency in the creative area.
  5. Coddle the goose who lays the golden egg. (provide enough time and resources to do the job well.)
  6. Don’t strain your advertising through too many layers.
  7. Make sure your agency makes a profit.
  8. Don’t haggle with your agency.
  9. Be candid and encourage candor.
  10. Set high standards.
  11. Test everything.
  12. Hurry. (Profit is a function of time.)
  13. Don’t waste time on problem babies (Back your successes and abandon  your losses.)
  14. Tolerate genius.
  15. Don’t under spend. (The surest way to overspend on advertising is not to spend enough to do the job properly.)

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