DAVID OGILVY: ADVICE FOR MODERN-DAY MARKETERS

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BREAKING DOWN THE STRATEGY

Earlier this year I picked up one of the most infamous marketing books of all time - Ogilvy on advertising.

Everyone talks about how great Ogilvy was, but I wanted to see for myself. So I bought the book and tucked in.

4 weeks later, I’d devoured every page of it and folded 100s of pages to go back to.

Ogilvy wasn’t just a great marketer, but he saw things in a way other marketers didn’t. There were no generic marketing takes, no cliche “find your target audience”. He opened my mind to new marketing ideas, ideas that have genuinely changed how I view marketing.

But as much as I loved the book, a lot of Ogilvy’s advice refers to marketing back in the 80s.

Which begs the question, would Ogilvy’s tactics work in the modern age of marketing?

That’s what I aim to find out today.

So here are 6 lessons David Ogilvy would give a modern-day marketer:

Lesson 1: Stop Trying To Be So Creative

In marketing there are often 2 types of people:

• Left-brain marketers (Analytical & data focused)

• Right-brain marketers (Creative & artsy)

Looking at his ads, you’d think Ogilvy was in the latter category, with creative headlines and unique ads. In reality, he was heavily against over-creative ads.

He said,

At first glance, I thought Ogilvy was anti-creativity. But when I started thinking about it, I completely agreed with him.

Nowadays, it feels like a lot of marketers make ads for other marketers.

They want to be:

• Talked about on LinkedIn.

• Featured in Adweek.

• Or go viral.

When what they should be focused on is creating something that actually sells their product to their target audience.

And Ogilvy would hate that.

So the first piece of advice I think he’d give all of us, is to stop thinking about what people will think about your campaigns and instead, think about if they’ll drive action with your target audience.

Lesson 2: You Need More Story Appeal

One of the biggest lessons I took from reading Ogilvy’s work was the importance of story appeal.

His infamous Hathaway ad is the perfect example of this in action:

And if you’ve been staring at it for a second, there is something very peculiar about it isn’t there? The man… he has an eye patch on?

• Why does he have an eye patch?

• Does he have no eye?

• Is he a pirate?

That is what Ogilvy calls “Story appeal”.

Over the last decade, brands have opted to use perfect models or images in their marketing.

Ogilvy would claim this is an example of agencies turning their back on proven research. Because it has been shown that photographs with an element of story appeal attract far more attention.

So Ogilvy would find ways to add story appeal to every ad he ran.

Like the Hathaway example, the model had 2 perfectly working eyes, Ogilvy just added the eyepatch - and in doing so added a story.

(Don’t pretend it didn’t catch your attention too.)

I love this piece of advice and I think about it often - something more of us marketers need to embody.

Lesson 3: Where’s The Depth?

The advice you get today is to shorten everything. Shorter paragraphs. Shorter sentences. Shorter advertisements.

The excuses we tell ourselves:

• “Attention spans are getting shorter.”

• “People don’t stay engaged for long.”

• “You have to make your marketing digestible.”

I’ve used all 3 of these excuses over the last few years. Then I read this line by Ogilvy:

He goes on to say:

But this wasn’t just a minor point in the book, long copy was something Ogilvy drilled home in nearly every chapter.

He showed stats. He showed studies. He showed results.

But would this apply in today’s world of marketing?

I think so.

Don’t get me wrong, you can’t have the lengthy ad copy that Ogilvy could use in a newspaper or direct mail campaign.

Yet there is something to be said about adding more depth to your marketing.

Just think about it in terms of social media influencers.

• TikTok influencers: Short, snappy content - but have very little influence over their audience.

• YouTube influencers: Longer content with more depth - have a huge influence over their audience.

I think that short sharp advertising has its place, but I also think Ogilvy has a point about adding more depth.

So I can compromise here:

1/ Short & snappy marketing to get attention.
2/ Marketing with depth at step 2 to nurture.

That’s a better mix.

Lesson 4: Stop Trying To Entertain

Marketing in 2024 is much closer to entertainment than informative - and Ogilvy would hate that.

He says,

Now, I understand why more and more marketing teams are focused on entertaining their audiences - and it has its place.

• It gets a lot of attention.

• Can build a cult following.

• Can change brand perception.

Companies like Duolingo or Ryanair on TikTok are prime examples of when this has worked great and got a lot of positive attention on the brands.

But how effective is it? How much of Duolingos revenue comes from their funny owl TikToks? And is there a more effective way to use their marketing team’s time and budget?

I’m actually not sure, but I know Ogilvy would be heavily pushing for informative content.

A great example of this in action would be this ad Ogilvy made for Rinso:

There’s no clever entertainment factor here, instead, it solves the key problem Rinso’s target audience is dealing with and positions Rinso as the solution to that problem.

I think more of this and less dancing owl would actually be really beneficial for a company like Duolingo.

Lesson 5: Get Out Of The Spotlight

We’ve already talked about the fact that Ogilvy hated over-creative ad campaigns, but the only thing he disliked more than that was ads that drew attention to themselves.

He says,

He’s not saying that ads shouldn’t focus on getting attention, he’s saying that ads need to get attention on the product - not the ad.

This marketing campaign by Thursday is the prime example of what Ogilvy hates:

When this went live it was going viral all over LinkedIn, news publications were covering it, and everyone in marketing was talking about it.

But while the ad got attention (not for the right reasons…)

And if I had to guess, it didn’t get many single people to try out Thursday.

It was an ad that got the spotlight, but not an ad that put the brand in the spotlight.

This also reminds me a lot of the personal branding craze that is going on currently.

Great personal brands → Put a spotlight on their company.
Bad personal brands → Put themselves in the spotlight.

(Unless their intention is to be an influencer of course.)

Ogilvy would definitely be telling me to talk more about my company and the people we help - that’s for sure.

Lesson 6: You’re Not Testing Enough

I’m not sure about you, but I definitely haven’t been using enough testing in our marketing.

So when I read this quote from Ogilvy, it felt like he was personally calling me out:

He’s right, he’s so obviously right, and it’s time I started actioning this.

It’s all well and good…

• Avoiding A/B testing landing pages.

• Not tracking the data on your content.

• Failing to A/B test your email subject lines.

But like Ogilvy says, the more you test the better your advertising will get.

After reading this I literally went and created an A/B test for our new lead magnet and then started A/B testing our emails.

Sometimes as marketers, we think we know what we’re doing, that we don’t need to test things - but the A/B test never lies.

I know Ogilvy would be screaming at me for the lack of testing I’ve done over the last 12 months - time to change that!

 🌱 THE GREENHOUSE

Things I’ve saved this week that are worth seeing:

• Ogilvy’s most famous ads. (See here)

• Some of Ogilvy’s best quotes. (See here)

• Interesting post on adding depth. (See here)

TL;DR

1/ Stop Trying To Be So Creative
2/ You Need More Story Appeal
3/ Where’s The Depth?
4/ Stop Trying To Entertain
5/ Get Out Of The Spotlight
6/ You’re Not Testing Enough

There’s a reason Ogilvy is regarded as one of the best advertisers to ever live. It’s safe to say that if I could resurrect him from the dead to advise us on our marketing - I’d take it!

But for now, I’ll have to settle for studying his work and guessing at the lessons he’d give me.

These 6 are definitely a great place to start.

Hopefully, you learned as much from this as I did, if you did… why not forward this to a friend?

Until next Sunday.

— Niall

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THAT’S ALL!

This has been a breakdown of Ogilvy’s marketing advice. I hope you have learned something and can implement a similar strategy in your business!

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