Make Money Like Mad Men! Ogilvy and the Glory Days of Long Form Advertising.

One of my favorite books on marketing and advertising is a book called Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy.

The book feels reminiscent of the days when advertising looked something like the TV show Mad Men. Men in fancy suits sitting in board rooms discussing how big the next Marlboro Man advertisement should be in Times Square. 

What a time to be an advertiser!

Ogilvy leisurely points out the fact that he likes to do his copywriting and advertising work inside a giant medieval castle. 

I imagine a slick looking man smoking a cigar with pen and paper in hand. Stacks of money everywhere. Five Rolls Royces in the driveway. 

Out of this time period came a proliferation of successful long form copywriting ads. 

It turns out, if someone is interested in a product they may not brush off a long form ad as just another marketing ploy. Assuming the copywriter is of a high caliber, they may even read through the whole advertisement and make a purchase at the end.

Length of copy be damned. 

How does this form of advertising translate into the modern world of digital marketing? 

Have you ever done a Google search for something you were interested in only to be directed to five links all with the word “ad” above them?

You read the descriptions of several of the links then decide to click on the one at the top. You are then directed to a single page with a lengthy description of a product. 

Depending on your inclination, you may dismiss the page, give it a brief glance, or read it and then subscribe or make a purchase.

This is the pay per click marketing process in action. 

No matter what option you choose, the marketer always pays for you to view their advertisement.

If enough people choose to subscribe or purchase, we have a successful campaign. This is assuming your return on investment justifies the campaign.

This is a great method for lead generation, albeit a potentially costly one. With the right strategy though, the returns can easily outweigh the cost.

I sometimes wonder, if the advertising guru David Ogilvy entered a time machine and was magically sent from 1950 to 2020 how successful would he be? 

I’d be curious to see how well his marketing skills would carry over to the modern digital sphere. 

I wonder if he would still stick to working at his medieval castle or if perhaps he’d move to a nice beach house in a place like Laguna Beach, California. 

Personally, I’d prefer the sunny beach lifestyle over a presumably cold and drafty castle, but I digress. 

As for Ogilvy’s modern success rate, my guess is he would be somewhere above marginal. 

In any case, the fact of the matter for the rest of us is that the advertising game has changed since the times of David Ogilvy and the Mad Men. The internet can be a whole different ballgame and attention spans have gotten significantly shorter. 

There are situations in which good copy can override a short attention span and there are times when it won’t. 

For instance, many advertisements on YouTube now have to be only SIX SECONDS long! That’s less time than it takes most people to frantically rush to change songs on Spotify after they’ve realized they were accidentally listening to Nickelback. 

Granted, videos are a completely different form of advertising altogether, but I hope you get my point.

Context matters! 

While traditional long form copywriting ads are certainly still effective, there are also many other formats and situations that must be taken into account. 

A top notch modern copywriter must be flexible and capable of writing copy that’s almost as long as a Tolstoy novel as well as being able to cater to the modern audience with the attention span of a toddler on a sugar rush.

It all depends on the situation. 

Many of the underlying principles that were used in Mad Men times still apply today, but they must be adapted to the current environment. 

And that environment may require a different approach for different scenarios. 

This means that an effective pay per click ad must not only reach the right people, but also capture their attention. 

This also means that wording and phrasing are very important. There are many ways to say the same thing, but there is usually just one or two ways that best fit the given situation. 

And this is why it’s necessary to stand apart from the crowd. Creating the same cookie cutter copy as everyone won’t do the job. 

An effective copywriter must know how to take the old school principles from guys like Ogilvy and know how to apply them to the current digital era. 

Don’t simply take what worked decades ago and assume it’ll be fine today. Read the audience, analyze the situation, and act accordingly.

THAT is the name of the advertising game.

Keep these things in mind and my hope is that you’ll have multiple Rolls Royces parked in front of your castle as well! 

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