OGILVY ON ADVERTISING (by David Ogilvy) Top 7 Lessons | Book Summary

One of the challenges any business has to hurdle is selling its products and services. And the key to massive sales is effective advertising. Advertising is perhaps one of the most stressful occupations and not well-compensated, but those whose passion lies in it are willing to take on the challenge. In this book, David Ogilvy provides strategies and tips for effective advertising. He stresses that we shouldn’t be so concerned with having creative and unique advertising campaigns – we should be primarily concerned with creating campaigns that sell.

Here are the top seven lessons from the book OGILVY ON ADVERTISING by DAVID OGILVY.

0:00 - Introduction
0:34 - Lesson 1
1:11 - Lesson 2
1:40 - Lesson 3
2:09 - Lesson 4
2:45 - Lesson 5
3:18 - Lesson 6
3:45 - Lesson 7
4:17 - Conclusion

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Lesson One: Do your homework.
To make sure that we develop a very effective advertisement for our product, we need to do our homework. The first on the list is to study the product. To sell the product well, we need to know what it does, what its features are, and even its flaws. The more we know our product, the more we will know how to sell it. Aside from that, we also need to know what our competitors are doing to sell the same product. This will give us a benchmark on what works and what doesn’t. Lastly, we also need to know our target consumers - what they want, what they think about the product, and what would make them buy the product. Doing this homework requires a lot of effort, but this is key to successful advertisements.

Lesson Two: Position your product.
As Ogilvy puts it, positioning our product means we make it clear for the consumers what our product does and who it is primarily for. For instance, if we sell an alcoholic drink, who is our target market, and where does our product stand in relation to its competitors? We don’t have to justify why our product is better than others. We need to give them honest information on what is good about our product. By positioning our product, we will provide our target consumers with why they should choose our product over others in the market.

Lesson Three: Build an image.
An essential element we need to market our product effectively is building a brand image. Just like people, our products need to have a personality. We can manifest this image through the product’s name, packaging, and even its price, among others. So when creating an advertisement for our product, we need to make sure that it will complement its image.

Lesson Four: Recognize a big idea.
Successful advertising usually comes from a big idea, representing a union between the art and science of advertising. To come up with the best marketing stint, we need to have a fundamental knowledge of the basics of advertising. That’s just the first part. The second one is how to execute these ideas, where the art element comes in. Ogilvy provides five questions we need to ask to come up with the big idea: “Did I make a gasp when I first saw it?”, “Do I wish I had thought of it myself?”, “Is it unique?”, “Does it fit the strategy of perfection?” and “Could it be used for 30 years?”. And once we recognize the big idea, make sure not to let it go.

Lesson Five: Promote the product.
The heart of an advertising campaign is the product itself, so we need to highlight it as much as possible. We offer our product to consumers to solve their problems or make their lives easier, so our advertisement needs to showcase how our product can do that. We can also effectively promote our product by assigning it to someone genuinely interested in it.

Lesson Six: Improve the product.
When our advertising campaign does not seem to generate the sales we expected, we can do two things: improve the campaign or improve the product itself. Maybe there is something else that the consumers are looking for in our product, or perhaps there is still something to improve. We can also evaluate our strategy from this point of view.

Lesson Seven: Stick to what works.
An advertisement becomes successful when our target consumers end up buying our product. So when we have an advertising strategy that worked, we maximize it and use it until it has potency. According to Ogilvy, it remains the same level even up to four repetitions. So if the advertising campaign still works, then stick to it.

This book emphasizes that expanding our market and getting more clients depend on having good and effective advertising. To develop the perfect campaign for our product, we need to do a lot of homework like knowing our product, creating its image, evaluating what competitors do, and most importantly, knowing our target consumers. It takes a lot of effort, but we will surely reap great and long-lasting results if done right.
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