reading report
2012-02-10
The book I read this semester is the autobiography of David Ogilvy. In his book Confession of an Advertising Man, Ogilvy told us his whole life of being an advertising man and also gave a lot of advices to the man who wants to become a good advertising man as well. Through my reading, I have learned a lot from his book. Not only simple strategies of advertising, but also way to success.
David Ogilvy was born in 1911 in West Horsley, England. Educated at Fettes College, Edinburgh, and Christ Church, Oxford, he started his career as an apprentice chef in the kitchens of the Hotel Majestic in Paris. He went on from Paris TO sell stoves in Scotland, and later immigrated to America to become Associate Director of Dr.George Gallup’s Audience Research Institute at Princeton. During the Second World War, Mr. Ogilvy was on Sir William Stephenson’s staff in British Security Coordination. After the war, he founded the advertising agency known today as Ogilvy and Mather. He founded his company in 1949 and he was 38 that year with no money, no client and only 6000 dollars in his accounts. But ten years later after 1949, his company had become one of the biggest advertising agencies in the world, and had 29 branches in different countries, 1000 clients, 800 million turnovers.
After the reading, I firstly impressed by the author’s fruitful experience and his spirit of working hard. No matter when he was in the hotel or in his own company. Except his experience, the most impressing thing left in my heart was his attitude and idea of advertising. Because of the failure of Chinese advertising, I was so curiosity of how a world class advertising company’s founder shared his opinion of advertising. And I was not disappointed.
In the text below, I will abstract something he said in his book which impressed me the most and share my view of his statements.
In chapter5 How to Build Great Campaigns, Ogilvy listed eleven advices or strategies for the businessmen who want to build a great company. One of the eleven advices named Give the Facts impressed me the most. He said,
Very few advertisements contain enough factual information to sell the product. There is a ludicrous tradition among copywriters that consumers aren’t interested in facts. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Study the copy in the Sears, Roebuck catalogue; it sells a billion dollars’ worth of merchandise every year by giving facts. In my Rolls-Royce advertisements I gave nothing but facts. No adjectives, no “gracious living.”
The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife. You insult the intelligence if you assume that a mere slogan and a few vapid adjectives will persuade her to buying anything. She wants all the information you can give her.
When I was a door-to-door salesman I discovered that the more information I gave about my product, the more I sold. Claude Hopkins made the same discovery about advertising, fifty years ago. But most modern copywriters find it easier to write shore, lazy advertisements. Collecting facts is hard work. (page 124)
The reason why those paragraphs impressed me is his idea of advertisement.
As we know, in our country many advertisements just cannot do it well. We Chinese suffered so much from the unrealistic advertisement, and that led to a common suspicion of advertisements in China. When it comes to advertisement, maybe most citizens will regard it as a kind of trick that fools the consumer. But Ogilvy’s viewpoint tells us that the basic principle of advertisement should be and must be real. The idea is the most important in companies; only by a good idea can a company become a great one. Just as Google’s slogan Don’t be Evil made it a great company in the history. Some people hold the view that a company is just produce products, but just as so much great companies show us, a company with no spirit cannot be successful. The products of a company is not just material thing, a wonderful idea contributes more to a great company. In the point of mine, no matter what kind of your company is, the most important idea you have to hold is that consumers are just as important as your family.
In the ninth advice Ogilvy said, Never write an advertisement which you couldn’t want your own family to read. He told us,
You wouldn’t tell lies to your wife. Don’t tell them to mine. Do as you would be done by.
If you tell lies about a product, you will be found out – either by the Government, which will prosecute you, or by the consumer, who will punish you by not buying your product a second time.
Good products can be sold by honest advertising. If you don’t think the product is good, you have no business to be advertising it. If you tell lies, or weasel, you do your client a disservice, you increase your load of guilt, and you fan the flames of public resentment against the whole business of advertising.(page 127)
The advice above is related to these before. The core principle is the same that the advertisement must be true. As Ogilvy said, every producer and advertiser should hold the view that the consumer is as important as your family. Every product must be produced carefully and every advertisement must be real and true. The principle seems to be simple, but the reality always far from it, especially in China. Just a few days ago, one of the biggest milk company Mengniu Dairy was reported that in its milk exists carcinogen. And it is common that products even food are polluted. Even though, most advertisement of the polluted food are told the consumer their products are good and safe. I hope all the manager of Chinese companies should learn from Ogilvy and always regard their consumers as their company and provide them products with good quality.
I want to talk more about the relationship between advertisement and society. As Ogilvy mentioned in his book, advertisement is so important that society could function well through it. First of all, advertisement could transmission the information of products to the people in society, so the system of economics will circle well. Secondly, citizens could decide which kind of products to buy through advertisement. Thirdly, another important factor which can’t ignore is that, the advertisement contributes a lot to the development of journalism. The importance of journalism is self-evident, so advertisement also contributes to society by supporting the journalism.
The relationship above is just theoretic; a well-functional interaction between advertisement and society should base on truth. Truth should be the foundation of the system. When advertisement loses its truth, everything changed and ruined. Firstly, if the fake and poor quality products’ advertisement was distributed, the consumer will suffer from them. We have seen so many events because of the fake and poor quality products that hurt citizens. Secondly, if consumers have been fooled by advertisements onetime, they will certainly hold a view that every advertisement is not credible. And furthermore, they will think that the media printed the advertisement is fly-by-night. Just as we can notice that more and more people in our country are lose confidence of our media. Thirdly, the media should not just display advertisement with any responsibility; media is a public instrument so it couldn’t just making money by advertising with no responsibility. So as we analysis above, if the foundation is eroded, the whole system of will fall down. We have seen so much advertisement without truth playing in our media, and we have suffered so much because of it. The problem is so complex, but the solution is so clear and simple, as Ogilvy said, Give the Facts. Truth is simple but powerful. I hope one day every advertisement we meet is true and reliable.
This book taught me a lot. As a student major in communication, I have learned many strategies which make an action of communication more effective. The book is important because it’s not just about advertising, it’s also about how people think and behave at the sharp end of business-any business. And I have learned from it is also just about the strategy, I also learned about how to be a better man in life. Another thing l learned from the book is about Chinese advertisement and its weakness; we have so many problems in the field of advertisement and at the field of media as well. The experience of David Ogilvy and his company offered us a good sample to learn from.
At last, I want to share another sentence in the book, it is one of the better known quotes isn’t specifically about advertising at all:”I admire people with gentle manners, who treat other people as human beings. I abhor quarrelsome people who wage paper warfare…… I despise toadies who suck up to their bosses; they are generally the same people who bully their subordinates. ”
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