David Ogilvy 7 commandments of advertising.

The legend and Father of advertising created 7 great laws of advertising everyone who wants to sell any product or any service should take into consideration.

Let’s dive in.

1. Your role is to sell, don’t let anything distract you from the sole purpose of advertising.

As much as your copy or creative work has to be creative and attractive, don’t forget that its sole purpose is to stir the desire to buy in your prospect. Your creative work is not meant to entertain but to sell your client’s product or service.

2. Clearly define your positioning: What and for Who?

Knowing every single detail about the product or service you are advertising helps you to position it in a way that makes it appeal to your prospects. The right headline, call to action, body and so on all depends on your knowledge of the product or service you are advertising.

3. Do your homework. Study your consumer in detail.

Your advertising can’t be effective and produce results if you don’t know your target audience in and out. Knowing how they think, how they spend, how they react and lots more is a major factor to consider when appealing to your prospects.

4. Think of the consumer as a woman, she wants all the information you can give her.

When you’re trying to make a woman yours, you try to tell her everything she asks about you even if you have to cook up something (things men to get a woman you know). Same applies when you’re advertising, your copy and your creative work must contain every bit of information that is needed to guide your prospect too make the purchasing decision, but don’t cook up something like a “casanova” all you need to tell them is every single truth about what you’re selling.

5. Talk to them in the language they use every day.

Imagine this blog post was written in some foreign language you don’t understand and you don’t have any form of a translator, you and I know that you won’t pay any attention to read. When it comes to advertising, it is important to know that communication is a fundamental tool, You must be able to speak the language of your prospects. You must be able to relate with them in their day to day parlance.

6. Write great headlines and you’ll have successfully invested 80% of your money.

“On average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar” Ogilvy says. This seems to be the most important aspect of your advertising copy. It must be able to make your prospect interested in seeing what you are advertising.

7. Highlight the product by making it the hero.

“There are no dull products, only dull writers,” says Ogilvy. You must be able to make the product the only solution available for your prospects and the secret to this is by being interested in the product, Ogilvy says “I never assign a product to a writer unless I know that he is personally interested in it. Every time I have written a bad campaign, it has been because the product did not interest me.”
Begin to practice all of these things and watch your advertising move to the next level.