Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon.
David OgilvyRead
The headline is the 'ticket on the meat.' Use it to flag down readers who are prospects for the kind of product you are advertising.
Interpretation
The headline serves as a critical tool to attract potential customers to your advertisement.
David Ogilvy emphasizes the importance of headlines in advertising, stating that they function as an invitation for readers who are likely to be interested in the advertised product. A compelling headline not only grabs attention but also targets the right audience, ultimately guiding prospects toward the product being promoted.
In practice
At a marketing seminar to highlight the importance of headlines in effective advertisements.
Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon.
Some manufacturers illustrate their advertisements with abstract paintings. I would only do this if I wished to conceal from the reader what I was advertising.
Much of the messy advertising you see on television today is the product of committees. Committees can criticize advertisements, but they should never be allowed to create them.
The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.
Experience has taught me that advertisers get the best results when they pay their agency a flat fee. It is unrealistic to expect your agency to be impartial when its vested interest lies wholly in the direction of increasing your commissionable advertising.
The creative process requires more than reason. Most original thinking isn't even verbal. It requires 'a groping experimentation with ideas, governed by intuitive hunches and inspired by the unconscious.' The majority of business men are incapable of original thinking because they are unable to escape from the tyranny of reason. Their imaginations are blocked.
Properly practiced creativity must result in greater sales more economically achieved. Properly practiced creativity can lift your claims out of the swamp of sameness and make them accepted, believed, persuasive, urgent.
The art of marketing is the art of brand building. If you arenot a brand, you are a commodity. Then price is everything and the low-cost producer is the only winner.
Advertising tends to be most effective in jogging finally into action those people who are well-enough disposed towards a product, but have not yet got around to buying it.
Kodak sells film, but they don't advertise film; they advertise memories.
Virality is not an accident. It is engineered. And that's why growth hackers beat traditional marketers.
Too many ads that try not to go over the reader's head end up beneath his notice.
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