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.
