David Ogilvy, Marketing God

“What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form.”
- David Ogilvy

My take: I agree that it’s content that eventually makes consumers make a decision to buy. But I’m not sure it’s only content that makes people pay attention in the first place. Content marketing is a trendy thing right now (although it’s been around forever), and it is no doubt valuable and necessary. But it’s not everything. You still have to get people to consume that content. You still have to do enough to just get their attention. Content does it some of the time, but not all of the time. 

You need form and content. You need emotional stimulus to make someone want to buy, and logical stimulus to make someone happy they bought.

Form and content serve different purposes, but they are both equally important.

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“The interesting thing about averages is that they hide the truth very effectively.”

- Avinash Kaushik (quoted here).

My take: I’m a big fan of data. But data is not the key to your success. Your insights into that data are what leads to success. Your testing and validation of that data are what leads to success. Your understanding of what’s driving the data is what leads to success.

One report is never the answer. It should actually prompt more questions. Sure, take some actions, make some changes. But accept the truth that every action should always prompt more questions.

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It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

- Charles Darwin

My take: Let me make one thing clear: I’m not a believer in evolution in terms of creation. Just doesn’t make sense to me.

But I do believe things evolve. Less in the physical sense, but most definitely in all other areas.

In large part, marketing is all about change. Responding to changing needs of the customer. Changing the minds of prospects. Changing expectations. Changing what people think of what’s exceptional and acceptable. Changing directions and messages.

Good marketers are good change agents. They don’t avoid the paths of resistance; they take them on.

So might it be said that it is not the strongest of marketers who survive, nor the most intelligent, but the marketers who are most responsive to change?

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“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them. Thus it happens that whenever those who are hostile have the opportunity to attack they do it like partisans, whilst the others defend lukewarmly, in such wise that the prince is endangered along with them.”

“Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage.”

“The one who adapts his policy to the times prospers, and likewise that the one whose policy clashes with the demands of the times does not.”

“The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.”

- Niccolo Machiavelli

My take: I recently came across the first quote here in some of my recent reading on social entrepreneurship. However, the more I started digging into Machiavelli quotes, the more gold I came across. I’ll admit, I’m not too up to speed on Machiavelli. I really couldn’t tell you his story. But these quotes ring at a pitch that reverberates for today’s entrepreneur.

As for the first quote here, it’s so important to remember that people naturally avoid change. I think we sometimes confuse that for simply not choosing change. But that’s not the case. People will vehemently oppose change. And so you can’t just think outside the box; you must move the box. You must make change seem like it’s not really change, but obvious. You must accept that progress is a process.

You can’t just have an idea; you must make it happen.

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You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.

- Dale Carnegie

My take: Well, you can’t really go wrong with a Dale Carnegie quote, now can you? And who knew he was such a social media wizard!?!

There are a few takeaways on how to apply this quote to Twitter and social media, and online marketing for that matter:

• Do your tweets and updates reflect that you’re interested in what your “friends” are saying? How many @ symbols show up in your tweets? What’s the ratio of comments to posts?
• The secret to a successful social media campaign is the same as to a successful life. Don’t complicate it. Take genuine interest in people. Twitter and Facebook are only tools to do that more.
• Be patient. I love that Carnegie didn’t say two days. Relationships, offline or online, take time. This is especially important if you are leveraging social media for business success. Commit to the journey.

What other ways can you apply this quote to today’s online marketing landscape?

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“Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department.”

- David Packard,
co-founder of  Hewlett-Packard

My take: What a profoundly simple quote! And it’s so true. Really, should marketing be a department? If you’re in business, haven’t you chosen to market something? In addition, why do we need Chief Marketing Officers? Shouldn’t that responsibity fall in the CEO’s bucket?

Mr. Packard realized this. As Andrew Lock often says, “everything is marketing, and marketing is everything.” The box it’s delivered, the tone of your voice on the phone, your automated order confirmation emails, your sign on the building: it’s all marketing. And it’s too big, and too important, for any single department.

Your thoughts and reactions?

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David Ogilvy, Advertising Legend

“Never write an advertisement which you wouldn’t want your family to read. You wouldn’t tell lies to your own wife. Don’t tell them to mine.”

- David Ogilvy

My take: It’s hard to do regular quotes on marketing and for every one of them not to be David Ogilvy.

I think this has less to do with lying and more to do with not telling the complete truth. I don’t want my wife to not know that her shampoo might make her hair fall out. I don’t want to not know that my son’s crib has a faulty connection. I don’t want to not know what you already know but have chosen not to tell me.

It’s tempting to keep the ugly truths hidden. You could even say it’s your customers’ responsibility to figure out all the facts.

But all it takes is for me to find out one thing about your product that I don’t like and that I think you should have made clearer upfront, and I’ll never buy from you again. How does that sound?

Full disclosure is becoming less and less of a position and more of a prerequisite.

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“The more facts you tell, the more you sell. An advertisement’s chance for success invariably increases as the number of pertinent merchandise facts included in the advertisement increases.”

- Dr. Charles Edwards

My take: This is horse crap. There are tons of salesmen out there this very second spewing the facts about their product with very empty pockets. There are lots of companies producing products that they know people simply need, and yet they’re completely ignored.

Facts don’t sell; stories do. Moving your customers’ emotions sells. Facts may help retain customers, making them feel good about the decision to buy in the first place, but facts don’t sell.

Do you disagree?

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PT Barnum - The need for promotion

“Without promotion, something terrible happens ….. Nothing!”

- P.T. Barnum

My take: Kevin Costner got lucky. You can rarely simply build it and then see people coming from miles around. Even though the product itself should be its own best promotion, it still needs you to light the match and fan the flame.

Oh, and overnight promotion doesn’t work. Promotion that works is consistent and persistent. A dripping faucet, if you will.

This is part of a somewhat weekly series on Marketing Quotes by Marketing Greats. Read them all.

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Any real record person knows that the number one most

Nile Rodgers - studio legend

powerful marketing tool when it comes to music is repetition.

- Nile Rodgers

My take: Do you really think half of the artists at the top of the charts would be there if some radio station hadn’t decided to just keep playing it until it became a hit? I mean, does the song get repeated because it’s good, or is it good because it gets repeated?

While the effect of repetition in a marketing strategy might be declining just a bit in the digital age, it’s still pretty powerful. Most people are on Twitter because it’s the new shiny object. Haircuts and fashion (ala Jennifer Anniston and Friends) become popular simply because of constant exposure. The space between #1 and #2 is infinity (just ask Tom Watson).

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