Ogilvy on Advertising
You aren't advertising to a standing army; you are advertising to a moving parade.
- David Ogilvy
In 1948, David Ogilvy founded the agency that is now known as Ogilvy & Mather. Starting with no clients and staff of two, it has grown into a worldwide enterprise of more than three hundred offices.
Here are a handful of Ogilvy's thoughts (set off by his beloved numbered points) regarding the tenets upon which he founded the agency, and some reasons it continues to grow fifty years later.
1. We sell or else.
2. Every advertisement must contribute to the complex symbol which is the brand image.
3. A brand is the intangible sum of a product's attributes: its name, packaging and price, its history, reputation and the way it's advertised.
4. Never write an advertisement you wouldn't want your own family to read.
5. We pursue knowledge the way a pig pursues truffles.
6. Do not compete with your agency in the creative area. Why keep a dog and bark yourself?
7. The best way to get new accounts is to create for our present clients the kind of advertising that will attract prospective clients.
8. Our business needs massive transfusions of talent. And talent, I believe, is most likely to be found among nonconformists, dissenters, and rebels.
9. The most important decision is how to position your product.
10. If nobody reads your advertisement or looks at your commercial, it doesn't do much good to have he right positioning.