What I’ve Learned

Along the way, I’ve learned a few things.

There are no guarantees in advertising. It’s a game of increasing preferences and probabilities – to gain attention, communicate and sell.

Strategy first! What to say. Then, words and creative ideas. How to say it.

Too often advertising just imitates other advertising. It isn’t winning attention and vividly communicating something specific and memorable.

Advertising isn’t a design contest or a creativity contest. All the creativity in the world can’t make up for a mis guided message.

Don’t get stuck in the land of targeting and testing. That’s data science. Without the expertise and discipline date science requires, targeting and testing is too often self-sabotage.

There’s a simple 1-2-3 advertising formula:

1. A vivid ad campaign. The message must be clear, the offer must be good enough; something people actually care about.
2. Run often enough and long enough. Repetition matters. A pretty good ad that runs a lot will out-perform a brilliant ad that doesn’t run enough.
3. Delivered to a relevant audience (where you advertise). When ads don’t work, this always gets the blame. (“Tried radio. Doesn’t work.”) The real problem is probably #1 or #2 or both.

How do you write great ads every time? I don’t know. How do you write hit songs? But there are dos and don’ts and things to know and understand.

Things I’ve learned from people who are a lot smarter than me.

“Many a small thing had been made large by the right kind of advertising.”

— Mark Twain

“People don’t pay attention to advertising. They pay attention to what interests them. Sometimes that’s your ad.”

— Howard Gossage

“Advertising is about increasing preferences and probabilities.”

— Bob Hoffman

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“People spend money when and where they feel good.”

— Walt Disney

“Talk to people about stuff they care about; the way they actually talk to each other.”

— Roy Williams

“I never met an ad that was too simple or too specific.”

— Bob Hoffman

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“Your job isn’t to show how good you are. It’s to show how good the product is.”

— Julian Koenig (writer of Volkswagon’s landmark 1960s “Think Small” ad.)

“A brand is not what we tell the consumer it is — it is what consumers tell each other it is.”

— Scott Cook

“If it doesn’t sell, it’s not creative.”

— David Ogilvy

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“The media doesn’t make the ad work; the ad makes the media work. ”

— Roy Williams

“There are a lot of great technicians in advertising. And unfortunately, they talk the best game. They know all the rules … but there’s one little rub. They forget that advertising is persuasion, and persuasion is not a science, but an art. Advertising is the art of persuasion.”

— William Bernbach

“Digital has changed delivery systems — pipes — but it hasn’t changed what’s going through the pipes.”

— Bob Hoffman

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“Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to save time.”

— Henry Ford