David Ogilvy: We Sell or Else - YouTube

For direct response types you're not getting what general or image advertisers are selling.

The product is culpable deniability and the impossibility to tie a result to any wide, bureaucratic, behind. They sell job stability.

The whole company could go down the tubes and nobody is going to figure out the ads don't work. Coke will fire every shlep on the bottling line and secretary and the cleaning staff first.

Mad ave knows what they're selling. And they know who they are selling to. Their market is bureaucratic corporate types. Not product or service buyers. Their product is CYA.

Image ads offer deniability, spin. Hard, absolute, no nonsense accountability does not. Simple.

Sales are purely a happy coincidence a manager can take credit for, not the real point of the exercise. You burn a house down and bingo, the eggs in the fridge got cooked.

Those companies like coke, pepsi, mc donalds and so on...do more of reminding advertising.

We all know who they are, they just try to remind us with their brand advertising. They drop the ball big time by not adding some direct response elements.

Look at those million dollar superbowl ads...some are funny, some crazy, but rarely will they use a call to action or make us want to get off the couch and go grab it.

They drop the ball big time and those huge companies would be even bigger if they practiced even just a little direct response. I guess they either make too much money to care or maybe they just haven't still figured it out because all those ad agencies are brainwashing them with telling them brand advertising is the way to go.

I think they should apply both if they were smart so not only make money from others selling it for them, but also so they make money from driving people into store for retailers as well which would be a win/win for the retailers and main company. This way if they didn't want to deal direct with consumer, they would still be able to benefit.

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How can we argue that these other types of advertising are ineffective and in the same paragraph, speak about the enormous success of brands like coke and mcdonalds, who do not generally use direct response?

I think something has not been considered here. There are reasons why companies use catchy, subliminal tunes to anchor their brand in our memories. There are reasons why Aston Martin and James Bond are synonymous.

Direct Response is intelligent and measurable. It's a scientific form of advertising, and for that it is unquestionably effective.

But is it really fair to discount all other forms of advertising, crowning Direct Response as the end all be all?

That was an exceptional video, thanks for posting it!

As for the OP, a lot of major industries that are already established with the level of success seen in Coca Cola focus more on brand management. Like it was said above, they are already known. From there, a large focus is put on maintaining an image through branding, PR and image.

They want to make people who buy their product happy they do so. For those who don't use it, they want to be part of the fold. You'll see this innate desire to belong used as a tactic in direct response as well.

This doesn't mean that direct response copywriters don't take part in the kinds of advertising seen in corporations that focus more on brand management. You can see this in ad tools like brochures, pamphlets, anything scripted. . . The list can continue.

As for being an entire different skill set. . . yes and no. Yes in that writing direct response is very difficult if you don't know what you're doing and you are not a great writer. I find that even if you aren't a writing guru you can still dream up a decent ad concept.

However when it comes to the underlying principle of effective ads, it's the same. It's not the surface or "face value" of what the ad says. . . it's the underlying emotions, ideals, thoughts, feelings and motivations that are touched in the heart and mind of the consumer that has them not thinking about the product, but absolutely needing it.

The latter should be the fundamental approach to all effective advertising. The difference is in fine-tuning the former.

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