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.
David OgilvyRead
Do not address your readers as though they were gathered together in a stadium. When people read your copy, they are alone. Pretend you are writing to each of them a letter on behalf of your client.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Write as if addressing each reader individually, rather than a large audience.
David Ogilvy emphasizes the importance of personal connection in writing. He advises writers to consider that each reader experiences their content in solitude, advocating for a tone and style that feels personal and direct, akin to writing a letter rather than addressing a crowd.
Themes
WritingCommunicationAudiencePersonalCopywriting
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop, a facilitator might say, 'Remember, when you write, you're writing to a single person, just like David Ogilvy advised.'
More from David Ogilvy
All quotes →Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon.
David OgilvyRead
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.
David OgilvyRead
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.
David OgilvyRead
The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.
David OgilvyRead
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.
David OgilvyRead
Similar quotes
We are tired of aristocratic explanations in Harvard words.
Dwight D. EisenhowerRead
No one can say just how long a message should be, but you rarely hear complaints about a speech being too short. The amateur worries about what he is going to put in his speech or article. The expert worries about what he should take out.
Edgar DaleRead
To this generation I would say: Memorize some bit of verse of truth or beauty.
Edgar Lee MastersRead
In the old days... it was a basic, cardinal fact that producers didn't have opinions. When I was producing natural history programmes, I didn't use them as vehicles for my own opinion. They were factual programmes.
David AttenboroughRead
I use the verb 'to torment,' as I observed to be your own method, instead of 'to instruct,' supposing them to be now admitted as synonymous.
Jane AustenRead
I've never let my school interfere with my education.
Mark TwainRead