Book Recommendation

I recently enjoyed reading David Ogilvy’s book Confession of an Advertising Man. 

The thing I appreciate the most about Ogilvy’s writing is his honesty.  I should temper that statement by acknowledging that at the time of the publication of the book Ogilvy was the head of a massive advertising agency, which most likely means that he is coloring the truth to give him any advantage he possibly can in terms of securing new clients and retaining those he already has.  My guess is that his account of just how close some of the personal relationships he describes with important people and all manner of statistics he presents are hyberbole.  However, I do appreciate his honesty when it comes to admitting that he has no idea what makes a good television ad, how to write folksy and some of the other limitations of his capabilities.  


Ogilvy does include one excellent example of the type of folksy / down home ad copy he claims not to be able to write:

Carnation Milk, finest in the land 

Here I sit with a can in my hand 

No tits to pull, no hay to pitch 

Just poke a hole in the son of a bitch.

Note: I don't have my copy of the book right here in front of me so I'm paraphrasing the four lines above from memory and therefore may be off in terms of punctuation and the exact wording used in the original.

The other thing  Ogilvy points out is that women respond to images of babies in advertisements.  This was a revelation to me.  I had previously written about some of my short comings in terms of understanding what women perceive and respond to here.  Amazingly, women really do respond to being shown images of babies.  Since reading this book I’ve witnessed two incidents in which women have let out verbal exclamations without any prompting when shown images of babies.  I’m sure it would have taken me years to come to this realization had I not read Ogilvy’s book.