37 tips from Ogilvy's creative director for advertisers

A few days ago, I happened to see several quotes from Ogilvy posted on Ogilvy’s Instagram. I was quite inspired after reading them, so I selected some of them to share with you. I hope this article will be of some help to you who work in the advertising industry.

1. Talk about products first, then advertising

01

Research your products before you advertise them. The better you understand them, the more likely you are to come up with great ideas to sell them.

02

Whenever possible, make the product itself the star of the advertisement . If you think the product is too boring, let me tell you: there are no boring products, only boring advertisers .

03

The best way to increase sales is to improve your product.

04

Advertising is often blamed for leading consumers to buy inferior products. It is true—but only once. Once consumers perceive that a product is of poor quality, they will never buy it again.

05

I have always believed that advertising is part of the product and that advertising costs should be viewed as production costs rather than sales costs.

2. Good advertising: has character, is unique, and is not complicated

06

Manufacturers that focus on using advertising to create a good corporate image can often gain the largest market share with the highest profits, because corporate image is the most distinctive character of a brand.

07

Advertising is a consolidation of the brand image, so the output of brand advertising must revolve around a unified image , even year after year.

08

Give someone a sip of Old Crow whiskey and then tell them it's Old Crow. Then give them a sip of the same drink, tell them it's Jack Daniel's, and ask them which one they prefer. They will perceive the two sips of wine as different because people taste impressions .

09

The best way to acquire new customers is to create ads for existing customers that appeal to potential customers.

10

If you want to attract consumers to buy your products, you need big ideas. Advertising without good ideas is like a ship sailing in the night.

11

Don't create an ad that you wouldn't want your own family to see.

12

Big ideas are often simple ideas .

13

Asking yourself these five questions will help you decide whether an idea is good:

1. Did you feel truly impressed when you saw it?
2. Do you wish you had come up with this idea yourself?
3. Is it unique?
4. Does it fit perfectly with the overall strategy?
5. Can it last for 30 years?

14

Any fool can make a bad ad, but it takes a smart person to keep them away from good ads.

15

Good advertising is like a radar scanner, constantly hunting down potential customers as they enter the market. Get a good radar scanner and keep it scanning.

16

Your advertising audience is not an army standing upright, but a moving phalanx.

17

Creativity works best in an atmosphere of joy and enthusiasm. But creativity doesn't work in an environment that is politically constrained and filled with fear.

18

Selling things does not rely on nagging consumers all the time, but on making them interested in your products .

19

Generally speaking, the number of people who read the title is five times the number of people who read the text. If you can’t sell your product with just the title, you’ve wasted 90% of your money.

20

A person's image reflects his character. Products, like people, also have personalities, and product personalities can be formed or shattered in market competition.

twenty one

Good ideas don’t just come from senior people and creative teams. Some of the best ideas come from project managers, researchers, and others.

twenty two

What people think is different from what they perceive, what they say is different from what they think, and what they do is different from what they say .

twenty three

I don't view ads as entertainment or art, I view them as informational vehicles . When I make an advertisement, I don’t want you to say how creative it is, but I want you to be interested in buying the product.

twenty four

Why is there an 80% chance of failure when launching a new product? Because sometimes they are just too new. When the first batch of no-cook cold cereals were launched, consumers didn't buy them.

3. How to be an excellent advertiser

25. Have a good attitude

Before every commercial I thought, “I’m going to fail this time.”

26. Just do it

Keep trying and your advertising skills will continue to improve.

27. Believe in yourself and stick with it

The sad thing is that people are always pushed to make changes in a hurry. However, rich rewards await those advertisers who have endless imagination and perseverance in the long term.

28. Integrity

In an age when television advertising can be a deciding factor in choosing the next president of the United States, dishonest advertising is as offensive as false votes.

29. It can output good ideas and also allow good ideas to continue and give full play to their value.

If you are lucky enough to have a good ad, keep doing it until the product is discontinued. Too many good ads are discarded before they completely lose their effectiveness.

30. Keep your passion

I like the order that knowledge brings, and I dislike the chaos caused by ignorance. We are as eager to learn as pigs are to truffles.

31. Understand yourself fully and dare to start over

It's never too late to discover something you don't like or are not good at. You just have to find what you love doing most after that and dedicate the rest of your life to it.

32. Have personality and don’t follow the crowd

I believe genius is most likely to emerge among those who do not conform, among those who dare to dissent and go against the grain.

33. Stay humble and respect talents

If we hire people who are less qualified than ourselves, our company will be mediocre. If we all hire people who can go above and beyond ourselves, our company will be filled with talented people.

4. Ogilvy’s creative people talk about advertising

34

Learn from your audience, and then pass on what you have learned from them and combine it with your own understanding, which will make your audience happy to some extent.

——By Piyush Pandey (CCO, Worldwide)

35

Empathy, sensitivity and care are the three pillars of friendship and brands need to make them stronger than ever.

——By Piyush Pandey (CCO, Worldwide)

36

A lot of complexity lies in simplicity.

——By Piyush Pandey (CCO, Worldwide)

37

Effective advertising can identify potential consumers, while useful advertising can create consumers.

——By Rory Sutherland (Ogivy, UK)

Regarding questions such as "how to advertise" and "what kind of advertising is considered good advertising", I think everyone has different interpretations, but from the words of advertising predecessors such as Ogilvy, we can still find some common features of good advertising, which I summarize as follows:

1. Good advertising relies on good products .
2. Creativity is not deliberate. It may be easier to discover good ideas by simplifying things with sincerity and passion .
3. When doing advertising, one must fully consider the target audience . The audience is constantly changing, and advertisers should be perceptive enough to capture these changes.
4. It is more important to interest consumers than to be creative.
5. The inspiration for good advertising often comes from the discovery of the details in life .

Today's informatization and various new technologies have brought the fun and richness of advertising to a new level, but it seems that fewer people are willing to be patient and polish a piece of work. I was deeply moved by the sincerity in advertising that Ogilvy expressed in his words. Ogilvy's words are certainly not the rules for making good advertising. New methods need to be constantly explored by new advertisers , but these small suggestions are like a beacon, which prevents advertisers from losing themselves. Perhaps they can also give those who are passionate but afraid of a dead end a little courage to move forward.

What do you think about what is a good advertisement?

Author: My Ice Cube

Source: My Ice Cube