If a Chinese advertiser only knows the name of a foreign advertiser, he probably knows David Ogilvy; similarly, if he only knows one advertising classic, the book is probably Confessions of an Advertiser.
David Ogilvy is an immortal legend in the advertising industry and the business world at large. He dropped out of college and worked as a cook, salesman, diplomat, and farmer. He knew nothing about marketing and had never written any advertising copywriting, he started at the age of 38, and after three years, he became the most famous advertising copywriter in the world, and soon founded the world-renowned Ogilvy advertising agency, and then won countless times the most honorable titles throughout his career - "The Pope of Modern Advertising", "The Most Creative Promoter of Modern Advertising", "The Most Sought-after Advertising Wizard of today's Advertising Industry", "The Father of Brand Image"...
After retiring as chairman of the Ogilvy Group, Ogilvy completed the end of the legend in a fascinating way: living with his wife in a private castle of French heritage, weaving flowers and grass, and summoning Ogilvy's global leaders every year to preach and solve his problems, until July 21, 1999, he went to heaven to continue his advertising business.
Ogilvy wrote his first and most important book, Confessions of an Advertising Man, during his summer break in 1962, and gave the rights to his 21-year-old son as a birthday present. He thought it would sell well for 4,000 copies, but it turned out to be a loose horse — a bestseller that was later translated into more than 20 languages and sold more than 1.5 million copies.
Ogilvy wrote this book for distinctly commercial purposes. First, to attract new clients to his advertising agency; second, to test the market conditions when their shares were publicly listed; and finally, to increase Ogilvy's popularity in business circles, killing three eagles with one stone, but Ogilvy failed to foresee the fourth eagle: in 1991, the book first appeared in front of Chinese readers and soon became a must-read "Bible" for advertisers.
The most convincing explanation for the fact that a book written for business purposes can sell well for 40 years is that it deserves so much attention from readers.
In this book, Ogilvy pours out his own advertising philosophy and experience, telling us how to create high-level advertising, how to write effective copywriting, how to produce superior TV commercials, while setting many of the most basic principles of modern advertising and the social responsibility of high standards of advertising, such as
- We advertise to sell products, otherwise it is not advertising.
- You can't make people buy your product because they're annoyed with you, you have to make him interested in your product before buying it.
- Consumers are not incompetent. She's your wife. Don't insult her intelligence.
- Don't launch an ad that you don't want your family to see.
- The temptation to be amusing rather than selling is a contact infectious disease.
- Methods that work in one country are almost always effective in other countries.
- Before you start writing your ad, research the product.
- The content of the advertisement is more important than the way the content is expressed.
- Tell the truth.
- Behave politely, but not pretentiously.
- Make your ads modern.
……
His philosophy of advertising and the many effective methods he has taught him to succeed form the backbone of Ogilvy's internal training materials, which is also the advertising "secret" that countless advertisers aspire to.
Ogilvy and Confessions of an Advertiser are so lofty in the advertising industry that people often overlook the other side of this man as a business hero and the book as a preeminent business reader, in which Ogilvy tells us how to win over and maintain clients and how to run an advertising agency.
David Ogilvy is often targeted as an "advertising guru", and Confessions of an Advertiser is often targeted as an "advertising classic". That's true, but it's not just that. The "Little Creative Shop" he founded in the past has today become a global international group and one of the world's largest communication service companies. Chinese mainland, the latest survey shows that Ogilvy is one of the 50 best employers in the minds of Chinese university students, and all this stems from Ogilvy's business philosophy and Ogilvy's corporate culture.
Ogilvy says, here's how I see our culture:
- Some of us have worked in our company all their lives. We should be hell-bent on making it a good place to do work. We put that in the first place.
- We see our people as human beings. When they have trouble – at work, sick, alcoholics, etc. – we help them.
- We try to get them to the extreme, and we put a lot of time and money into training — like a practice hospital.
- We give our managers a great deal of freedom and room for independent activity.
- We like people who are honest with arguments, honest with customers, and most importantly honest with consumers.
- We praise people who work hard, objectively and seriously.
- We hate people who are manipulative, flattering, domineering, and ostentatious.
- The opportunity to climb our ladder is open to all. We don't have any biases, including religious biases, racial biases, or gender biases.
- The advice we make to our clients is what they would do if we were owners of their company, regardless of our interests.
- What customers ask of advertising agencies is a superior advertising campaign. We make creativity our primary responsibility.
- We take care to market our customers' products without violating the customs of the countries in which we do business.
Ogilvy has a famous metaphor for a "Russian matryoshka doll" and a story that gives many business managers a wary eye. At one Ogilvy board meeting, each of the directors present had a Russian matryoshka doll in front of them. Ogilvy said, "That's you, open it." So, the directors opened the dolls one by one, and the result was a doll of one size smaller. Then they continued to open, and the dolls inside were smaller than one. Finally, when they opened the innermost mini doll, they saw a small note with Ogilvy inscription.
The note read: "If you regularly hire people who are weaker than you, we will become a dwarf company in the future." On the contrary, if you hire someone stronger than you every time, we will become a giant company in the future. ”
He wrote down these guidelines in various forms and woven them into Ogilvy's corporate culture, making Ogilvy a great place to work, a company respected by customers, and a giant company known for its creativity, brand management, corporate culture and perfect training.
In addition, this is actually a book for advertiserSA. Ogilvy unceremoniously tells us how to be an advertiser for a good client. Ogilvy wrote down 15 rules for clients:
- Eliminate the trepidation of your advertising agency.
- First of all, choose the right advertising company.
- Give your advertising agency a comprehensive and thorough overview of your situation.
- Don't compete with your advertising agency in the creative world.
- Take good care of the goose that lays your golden eggs.
- Don't let layer after layer of agencies interfere with your advertising campaigns.
- Make sure your advertising agency is profitable.
- Don't get into trouble with your advertising agency.
- Meet each other sincerely and encourage frankness.
- Set a high standard.
- Everything is tested.
- Be efficient. Young people in big companies don't understand the value of time, as if profits aren't the product of time.
- Don't waste time on problematic products.
- Cherish good talent. My observation is that the mediocre can recognize the good but hate the good, and will eventually destroy the good.
- Don't stretch your advertising budget.
- The content of advertising services may be changing, but these rules are still valid.
In 1988, Ogilvy wrote about a topic in the book's recommended preface: The advertising industry faces four crisis problems:
The first problem is that they now spend twice as much on discounted sales as they do on advertising. They use discounts to get sales, rather than using advertising to build a strong brand. Any fool can cut the price, but creating a brand requires a mind and perseverance.
You can't afford to build an indestructible image with discount promotions, and only an indestructible image can make your brand a life for people
Part of. Andrew Ehrenberg of the London Business School had one of the best marketing minds today. He says that price cuts can tempt people to try a brand, but they'll still go back to their usual brand as if nothing had happened.
Why are so many brand managers addicted to discounted sales? Because the people who hire them are only interested in that little bit of profit under their noses, why? Because they are more interested in their stock options than in the future of their company. Discounted sales are "drugs". Ask a brand manager who is addicted to "drugs" what happens to their market share when the ethereal feeling of "drugs" disappears, and he will diverge from the topic; ask him if his profits have increased, and he will divert the topic.
Businessmen who have inherited the brands established by their predecessors are ruining their brands. Sooner or later they will find out that they cannot sell
A brand that no one has ever heard of. The brand is the grain they inherit, and they are eating the grain.
The second problem is that advertising agencies, particularly in the UK, France and the US, are today being harassed by people who see advertising as an avant-garde art form. They have sold nothing in their lives; their ambitions are to win awards at the Cannes Advertising Festival; they lure unfortunate customers into spending millions a year to get them to show their originality; they are not interested in the products they advertise, and they think that consumers are not, so they make little mention of the merits of the products. They are fun-loving people at best, and they are very lame.
Such people, because their minds are visual, never read words themselves, so they also make the copy I write so that consumers can't read it. According to my education, if I hadn't spent 5 years selling cooking utensils door-to-door, I would have fallen into this trap today.
The third problem is the emergence of exaggeration maniacs. The brain structure of the exaggerators is more inclined to finance than to creation. To their clients' consternation, they built their empires by buying off other advertising agencies.
The fourth problem is that advertising agencies are still wasting their clients' money to make the same mistakes over and over again. I recently counted 49 ads in a German magazine that were made in a negative way (white on a black background); a survey many years ago showed that negative ads were very difficult to read.
After more than 30 years, the four problems mentioned by Ogilvy at that time are still of reference significance for the current domestic advertising environment.
From Ogilvy's writings, we can also feel that he speaks and writes without pretense, sometimes inflammatory, sometimes humorous, always sharp, and even harsh when necessary. He also bluntly said that he hated the "literary disease" on advertising. Before the text of Confessions of an Advertising Man begins, Ogilvy said, "Writing this book in the old-fashioned first-person way violates the statutes of contemporary American conduct. However, I think that this book is my confession, and it is extremely unnatural to use us in recounting my experience. "This kind of frankness is Ogilvy's style. In this era of complicating simple issues, Confessions of an Advertiser will give you a rare light-hearted experience.
【Book Recommendation】
Confessions of an Advertiser
Author: David Ogilvy
Publisher: CITIC Publishing House
Book Introduction: A classic in the advertising industry, it is probably the book that has the greatest influence on advertisers in the history of advertising. It has been translated into more than twenty languages and published as a textbook for advertising and marketing courses in hundreds of colleges and universities in dozens of countries. With its own advertising philosophy and experience, Ogilvy has enriched the concept of advertisers and the core part of the advertising profession, set many of the most basic principles and standards of modern advertising, and also put forward the social responsibility of high standards of advertising.
For advertising and marketing practitioners, Ogilvy will tell you how to create high-level advertising; how to write effective copy; how to produce superior TV commercials; for the managers of advertising and marketing companies, Ogilvy will tell you how to win and maintain customers, how to run an advertising agency; for brands, Ogilvy will tell you how to be a good customer.