If you read one book on advertising it should be Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy.  My edition dates to 1985 but the advice is timeless.    Ogilvy was a college dropout/kitchen cook/door-to-door salesman who founded the Ogilvy and Mather ad agency.  He was a gifted writer.  In case you need proof, look at the help wanted ad at the end of this article.  Here are Ogilvy’s advertising maxims together with Insider’s thoughts about how they apply to the out-of-home business:

• ‘The consumer is not a moron, she is your wife.”  The sex stereotyping is dated but the advice is sound.  Keep this in mind every time you put up a billboard.  Provide facts, humor, or help and don’t patronize.

• “If you set your copy in black type on white background more people will read it than if you set your copy in white type on black background.”  Billboard companies frequently disregard this when they design their websites.  This rule can sometimes be broken when designing ads for digital signs but that’s for another post.

• “Whenever you can make the product itself the hero of your advertising.”  How many times have you heard someone say there’s room for only one hero in a billboard ad?

• “It’s bad manners to use products which compete with your clients’ products.”  When Ogilvy won the Sears account he wore Sears suits.  When Ogilvy won the Rolls-Royce account he drove a Rolls.  How many of you take this to heart?  Do you patronize the restaurants, gas stations, car dealers and lawyers which use your boards. When people do business with you it is common sense and good business to return the favor.

• “People are five times more likely to read headlines than body copy.”  Think about this when you design your billboards.  Your headline will make or kill your ad.

• “You cannot bore people into buying your product, you can only interest them.”  See the first maxim.

• “Testimonials from celebrities get high recall scores but I have stopped using them because people remember the celebrity but forget the product.  What’s more, people assume the celebrity has been bought, which is usually the case .”  Insider is not so sure about this.  Maybe this is true for a celebrity pitching a product which they clearly wouldn’t use, but sometimes celebrities are effective sponsors when they use and like to products they endorse.  Think Michael Jordan’s Nike tennis shoes.  Insider was also going to mention Lionel Messi’s 2015 soccer shoe ads for Nike but when he looked the ads up he realized that the ads were for Addidas shoes.  Score one for Ogilvy.

• “I have written factual advertising for a bank, for gasoline, for a stockbroker, margarine, foreign travel and many other products.  It always sells better than empty advertising.”  This is a challenge when limited to 7 words but worth keeping in mind.

Ogilvy didn’t like outdoor.  In a subsequent post Insider will discuss why Ogilvy didn’t like outdoor and why he was wrong.

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