Ogilvy on Advertising: what David Ogilvy's books still teach a VSL writer

Ogilvy on Advertising (1983) is David Ogilvy's book of advice on making advertising sell, written twenty years after Confessions of an Advertising Man (1963). The lessons from the two books that still work for a VSL: study the buyer before you write, make the headline and the opening carry the promise, prove a quality with a fact instead of an adjective, show the product working, and test.

He offered them as hints. Ad Age's tribute notes that in the book he said he hated rules (Ad Age), so treat each lesson here as a hypothesis for your own traffic.

David Ogilvy's career, from Gallup to WPP

David Mackenzie Ogilvy was born in West Horsley, Surrey, in 1911 and died near Bonnes, France, in 1999, aged 88 (Britannica). Ad Age's tribute lists Claude Hopkins among the American advertising pioneers he was a disciple of; our summary of Scientific Advertising covers what Hopkins taught.

The agency opened in New York in 1948 as Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson & Mather, and the company now calls itself simply Ogilvy (Ogilvy). The dates that matter to a copywriter:

David Ogilvy, 1911–1999

His agency, his best-known ads and his books, by date

1. 1911Born in West Horsley, SurreyOn 23 June, in England.
2. Before 1948Research with George GallupWorks for Gallup's Audience Research Institute in Princeton; Ad Age says as associate director.
3. 1948Founds the agency in New YorkAs Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson & Mather, with Anderson Hewitt. S.H. Benson Ltd. is among the original backers.
4. 1951The man in the Hathaway shirtA campaign for C.F. Hathaway Co.
5. 1958The Rolls-Royce adIts headline said that at 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in the car came from the electric clock.
6. 1963Confessions of an Advertising ManPublished by Atheneum.
7. 1966The offices become Ogilvy & MatherAfter a rename in 1954 and a merger with London's Mather & Crowther in 1964.
8. 1983Ogilvy on AdvertisingPublished by Crown.
9. 1989WPP buys the Ogilvy GroupOgilvy becomes WPP's honorary chairman.
10. 1999Dies near Bonnes, FranceOn 21 July, aged 88.

Ogilvy on Advertising or Confessions: which one to read

Most of the lines worth using come from Confessions, and they're the easiest to trust, because the collection of his quotations that the agency publishes credits each one to its source (Quotations of David Ogilvy). Ogilvy on Advertising is the book people cite for two famous claims the collection doesn't include, and two well-known lines about research that circulate under his name aren't in it either. Here is where each idea comes from:

Which idea comes from where

What the collection of his quotations credits to each source, and what it leaves out

Atheneum, 1963Confessions of an Advertising Man

• Test as the most important word in advertising
• The consumer isn't a moron (quoted below)
• Facts, not a slogan and a few empty adjectives
• Sell, don't entertain, with Horace Schwerin's research
• Show it, run it with the sound off, open on the fire

Every line here is in the collection, credited to this book.

Crown, 1983Ogilvy on Advertising

• Five times as many people read the headline as the body copy, as the figure is usually cited
• Read Scientific Advertising seven times before touching advertising, as Wikipedia quotes page 203 of the 1983 Pan edition

Neither line is in the collection. Find it in the book before you put it in quotation marks.

Other pieces in the collection

• How to Create Advertising That Sells, his agency's own advertisement: the big idea, kept simple, and showing over saying
• How to Make Successful Television Commercials: the buyer wants the product, not the commercial

Each line is credited to its piece.

The two books also differ in tone. A review in the Canadian Book Review Annual found the 1983 book more serious than Confessions, close to a textbook on what sells, with chapters such as "How to make TV commercials that sell". Start with Confessions for the checked lines, then read Ogilvy on Advertising for the same author twenty years later. Quote neither from memory.

Research decides how the video opens

Before he founded the agency, Ogilvy worked in research, with George Gallup in Princeton (London Business School). Ad Age's tribute says he was associate director of Gallup's Audience Research Institute, and that he used to say the agency succeeded so quickly partly because research showed him how consumers would react (Ad Age).

For a VSL, research has one job before any other: deciding how the video opens. Two findings settle it. The first is the moment buyers describe when they talk about the problem in their own words, in reviews, forums and support emails; that moment is what your first shot should show. The second is how much they already know. A viewer who doesn't yet know they have the problem needs a different first minute from one who is comparing brands (the five levels of awareness). Objections and failed attempts shape the middle of the script, and our VSL script guide covers how to collect them.

Ogilvy's headline figure, translated for a VSL

A figure widely attributed to Ogilvy, usually cited from Ogilvy on Advertising, is that on average five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy (Social Media Today). It isn't in his collection, and the versions in circulation differ in their wording, so treat it as a rule of thumb for print. It was never a measurement of video.

The shape of the problem does carry over. Everyone who lands on a VSL page sees the headline and the poster; only some start the video, and fewer are still watching when the offer arrives. Say 4,000 visitors land and 60% start the video. If 30% of those are still there at the pitch, 720 people hear the offer, 18% of the visitors who saw the headline. If 30% of them click and a quarter of the clicks buy at $120, that's 54 orders and $1.62 per visitor.

That ratio, 4,000 visitors to 720 who hear the offer, is your page's version of his figure, and unlike his, you can measure it. Put in your own numbers:

Calculator

VSL funnel calculator

From visitors to revenue, one stage at a time. Each rate is a share of the stage before it.

Unique visitorsPlay rate (visitors who start the video)%Pitch retention (viewers still watching at the pitch)%CTA click rate (of viewers at the pitch)%Checkout conversion (orders per CTA click)%Average order value$

Revenue per visitor (RPV)

$1.62

Pitch reach (visitors who see the pitch)

18.0%

720 of 4,000 visitors

Orders

54

Conversion rate

1.35%

orders ÷ unique visitors

A change at any stage multiplies through to revenue per visitor: 10% more viewers at the pitch means 10% more orders while the later rates hold. Take every number from one traffic source and one period, so the stages describe the same visitors.

Reset to the example

Raise only the play rate, from 60% to 70%, and revenue per visitor goes from $1.62 to $1.89 with nothing else changed. In the example, 82% of visitors never reach the offer. For them, the headline above the player, the poster and the first seconds of the video are the whole pitch, so the opening has to make the promise. To test one opening against another, see what John Caples' headlines teach.

The consumer isn't a moron: facts over adjectives

The line that sums up his stance comes from Confessions: "The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife." It was written in 1963 for a reader he pictured as a housewife, and that assumption belongs to its decade. The argument around it hasn't aged. In the lines that follow it, he wrote that you insult the buyer's intelligence if you think a slogan and a few empty adjectives will persuade her, and that buyers want as much information as you can give them.

His 1958 ad for Rolls-Royce shows the method. Instead of calling the car quiet, the headline said that at 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in the car came from its electric clock (Ad Age). The adjective never appears. A detail the reader can picture, and could check on a test drive, does its work. Gary Halbert later reprinted the ad for his newsletter's readers to copy out by hand, a study habit our swipe file guide explains.

That goes a step past the facts and figures Hopkins asked for. It names the moment a buyer would notice the quality, and on video you can film that moment: for each adjective in your script, find where a buyer would notice it, and show that. Take Clearmorn, a fictional magnetic windshield cover that returns in the TV rules below. "Fast" becomes a timer reading 0:05 as clear glass appears. "Stays on in a storm" becomes the cover still in place after a windy night, filmed the next morning. Each shot has to be the real product on a real day; staged, it's a false claim on film.

The big idea, kept simple

In How to Create Advertising That Sells, his agency's own advertisement, Ogilvy warned that advertising without a big idea passes unnoticed, and that big ideas tend to be simple. For a VSL, the big idea is the one thought a viewer would repeat to a friend afterwards. If your team needs a paragraph to say what the video is about, you don't have one yet; our guide to big idea copywriting covers how to find one and test it.

Ogilvy's TV rules, applied to a VSL opening

His advice on television commercials is the part of his work closest to a VSL, and the best documented: his collection gives each line from Confessions with its source. He wrote that a commercial exists to sell, not to entertain, and cited Horace Schwerin's research, which found no correlation between people liking a commercial and being sold by it. He passed on Gallup's report that viewers forget what is said if it isn't also shown, and concluded that anything you only say, without showing it, is wasted.

He also told advertisers to run a commercial with the sound off, because one that can't tell its story without sound is useless. And he cited research showing that commercials which open on a dramatic picture hold their audience better; his example was a fire extinguisher commercial, which should start on the fire itself. Here are the four rules applied to the first 15 seconds of Clearmorn's VSL:

Four rules, one VSL opening

The first 15 seconds for Clearmorn, a fictional magnetic windshield cover

Open on the fireSound offShow itSell

Open on the problem, not the brand

0:00 A dark driveway at 6:40 a.m. A man scrapes ice off his windshield with a credit card, late again.
On screen: "17°F. Still scraping."

Not a logo, not a slow pan across a kitchen, not a founder saying hello.

Make the opening work on mute

On screen, in large type: "Clear glass in five seconds, every frozen morning."

Watch your first 15 seconds with the sound off. If a stranger can't say what the video promises, the opening fails his test.

Demonstrate instead of describing

0:08 The same car the next morning. He peels the cover off in one pull. The glass underneath is clear, and a timer on screen reads 0:05.

Film the real product doing the real thing. A staged result is the one demonstration you must never use.

Sell, don't entertain

Voiceover: "If you park outside, this is your last winter of scraping. Here's how it stays on in a storm, and why it won't scratch your paint."

A joke can hold attention and still sell nothing. Every line should move the viewer toward wanting the product.

The sound-off rule bites harder on a VSL page than it did on television. RevvyScales starts every VSL as a muted teaser and, when a first-time viewer taps for sound, rewinds to 0:00 so the hook is heard from the first word; captions are included on every plan, as a .vtt or .srt file per language with a CC button on the player (subtitles and captions). Your opening is seen in silence first and heard second, so it has to work both ways.

One line seems to contradict another. In How to Create Advertising That Sells he wrote that what you show matters more than what you say; Ad Age's encyclopedia says he taught copywriters that what you say matters more than how you say it (Ad Age). The first puts showing above telling, the second substance above style, and a VSL needs both: a real argument, demonstrated on screen.

Try the rules on three openings:

Three openings, judged by his rules

1. A VSL opens with eight seconds of logo animation, then a slow shot of the product on a kitchen counter. Which rule does it break first?

   Open on the fireRun it with the sound offBuild on a big idea
   Show the answer

   Open on the fire. Ogilvy cited research showing that commercials which open on a dramatic picture hold their audience better, and his example was a fire extinguisher commercial that should start on the fire. The VSL version is to open on the problem, shown, before any logo.

2. You watch the first 15 seconds on mute and can't tell what the video promises. By his sound-off test, the opening is…

   Fine, because viewers will unmuteNot finished until the promise reads on screen
   Show the answer

   Not finished until the promise reads on screen. He wrote that a commercial that can't tell its story without sound is useless. A VSL that starts muted is watched exactly that way first, so the promise has to work as on-screen text or captions.

3. Your team loves a funny skit opening. On the same traffic, a plain demo opening brought in more revenue per visitor. What does the research Ogilvy cited suggest?

   Keep the skit, because people liked itKeep the demo: liking an ad and being sold by it are different things
   Show the answer

   Keep the demo: liking an ad and being sold by it are different things. Ogilvy's collection gives Horace Schwerin's finding, from Confessions: no correlation between people liking a commercial and being sold by it. Judge openings by what they sell, not by applause.

Test, the word he ranked first

In Confessions he called test the most important word in advertising. For a VSL, test the opening before the close, because the opening decides how many people ever reach the close. Before you spend anything, run his sound-off check on three people who haven't seen the video: if they can't say what it promises, fix that first. Then judge each version on real traffic by revenue per visitor, not by which one the team likes. Schwerin's finding is the reason.

On the Growth plan and up, RevvyScales can run headline and poster variants inside one VSL, show each by the weight you set and keep every viewer on the same one (split tests inside a VSL). On any plan, a folder can split traffic between whole versions of the VSL, which is how you test a new first minute.

What has aged in his advice

• The length of the job. A TV commercial had seconds; a VSL has to hold people for minutes. His rules govern the opening and the proof, and the middle of a VSL needs retention craft of its own.
• The slow build. His best-known campaigns were brand campaigns, some of them running for years: Schweppes began around 1952 and later ran on television into the 1960s. A VSL has to earn its order in one sitting, so borrow his specifics, his showing over telling and his testing, not the years of patience.

Put Ogilvy to work on your next VSL

Eight checks, in the order you'd do them; the ticks stay in this browser:

Ogilvy's rules, applied to your next VSL

• Collect buyers' own words for the problem, and the moment it shows up, before you write a line.
• Open on that moment, shown on screen, before any logo or introduction.
• Watch the first 15 seconds on mute. If a stranger can't tell what the video promises, add on-screen text or captions.
• For every adjective in the first two minutes, film the moment a buyer would notice that quality, or cut the word.
• Show the real product working before you ask for the order.
• Cut anything in the opening that entertains without selling.
• Check every Ogilvy quote you use against the book or his collection.
• Test two openings on the same traffic and judge them by revenue per visitor.

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