Young Creatives: put down your f*cking iPhones and learn something.
(click ad, via) It's a 1,909-word trade ad, by David Ogilvy, that brought in millions in billings. Sure, it's a hideous layout and some of the copy is laughably dated. But, 40 years later, it can still teach a few lessons to today's new clueless ad "gurus."Like: "Headlines that promise a benefit sell more than those that don't...it pays to inject genuine news into headlines." Also: "Be suspicious of awards. The pursuit of creative awards seduces creative people away from the pursuit of sales." Punch your digitally-shortened attention span in the face, and read it all. To view some of today's atrociously bad ad agency self-promo ads: go here and here.
posted by copyranter @ 10:50 AM
3 Comments:
He uses gender-neutral language and alternates between "he" and "she" where gendered pronouns are necessary. That's pretty hip for being like 50 years ago.
The hilariously dated parts were his calling this "brevity" and asserting that people read long copy. Unfortunately I don't think that's really the case anymore.
I also really liked his point on creative awards. A lot of creatives are so hung up on being "clever" they forget all about selling the product.
"The hilariously dated parts were his calling this "brevity" and asserting that people read long copy. Unfortunately I don't think that's really the case anymore."
Perhaps, perhaps not, people read a lot online, particularly women. I'd say we are less tolerant of long winded video content than long winded copy, it's easier to skim read than to fast forward.
I think a lot of what he says still holds true today, despite the changes in media channels.
I don't know that kudos for gender-neutrality is quite deserved; it's been a long long time since advertisers and their clients acknowledged that women are a target market, so references to the advertising consumer as "she" aren't that surprising. The anachronistic sexism here is "The consumer isn't a moron; she's your wife", which tells us his own audience - the advertisers and business decisionmakers reading this - are all men.
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