How Direct Response Advertising Ad By David Ogilvy

How direct response advertising can increase your sales and profits

Even if your company has never used direct response, read what Ogilvy & Mather has learned from half a billion coupons

Ogilvy & Mather has created more than $150,000,000 worth of direct response advertising—in mail and media—for the American Express Company, Burpee Seeds, Cessna Aircraft, Nationwide Insurance, Shell Oil, Sears, Roebuck and other clients. In the process, we have learned that direct response advertising can help sell 750,000 jet airplanes as well as 25¢ packets of flower seeds. Here are a few of the ways Ogilvy & Mather uses this most accountable form of advertising as part of our clients' marketing programs. Some of them may be useful to you. 1. Direct response can be your 'secret weapon' in new product introductions. Cessna Aircraft used direct mail in its introduction of 'Citation,' a new $790,000 business jet. Ogilvy & Mather is now preparing to list every corporate executive and their chief pilots long before the first 'Citation' was in production. 2. 'Remarkably effective way to reach your best prospects. Today Mercedes-Benz diesel engine cars sell well in America. But ten years ago, it was difficult to identify and reach the limited number of high-potential prospects for diesel cars. Ogilvy & Mather compiled a list of people who owned the demographic profile of existing diesel car owners, then sent them an 8-page letter. As a direct result of this letter, Mercedes-Benz sold 716 diesel cars within eight weeks. 3. How to land your most profitable new customers. Ogilvy & Mather has developed special acquisition programs designed to acquire new credit customers for our clients on a highly selective basis. These programs combine sophisticated list segmentation techniques with a remarkably precise formula that identifies the profitable customer; establishes his value, and reveals how much should be spent to acquire him. 4. How to build a bank of localized leads for your sales force. The appointment accuracy of direct mail makes it the ideal medium for obtaining sales leads and scheduling appointments. Our computerized 'Economy Futures List Bank' supplies ideal leads to Merrill Lynch representatives from Saskatoon to San Francisco. 5. Increase response on network television commercials. Television commercials for American Express Card Carriers end with a request for a direct response by phone. This produced thousands of applications for the Card. Ogilvy & Mather has also improved response on direct mailings by timing mail drops to coincide with television commercials. 6. Direct response is an indispensable element in successful new advertising. Direct response has proved to be a key ingredient in marketing travel. The secret is to close the sale by mail—or to obtain a highly qualified lead—instead of wasting a fortune mailing expensive booklets and pamphlets. Ogilvy & Mather coupon advertisements for Cunard have paid out four times over in immediate ticket sales. A direct mail piece for five London theater tickets produced response rates as high as 26 percent for the British Tourist Authority. By mail, Today's senior-citizen high-desert direct mail. Today's ever-increasing distribution of credit cards has revolutionized marketing by mail. Credit cards now make direct mail practical for selling sewing machines, calculators, color television sets and many other products costing hundreds, even thousands, of dollars. As sales costs escalate, more and more manufacturers will turn to this way of selling direct to the consumer. Techniques that work best in direct response advertising 8. Challenge copy. Ogilvy & Mather has found that it often pays to challenge dogma and look for breakthroughs that others may have missed. In an inexpensive four-letter test on often out-of-plan for more copy outperforms less. 9. How to make long copy succeed. Tests show long copy usually, but not always, pulls more orders than short copy in direct response advertising. 10. The way you position your offer can double your response. A test against three new advertisements against your successful Burpee advertisement featured a $1.00 offer. All three new advertisements improved response. The one shown below increased results 112 percent. 11. It pays to demonstrate. Product demonstrations are not easy to do in direct mail. But they are worth the effort. They can be exceptionally effective. Ogilvy & Mather's mailing for Cessna's 'Citation' jet enclosed a recording that outmatched the 'Citation's' low noise levels with competitive jets and even an electric blender. 'The record proved Cessna's case; words alone could only have made a claim. 12. Asking the reader to quiz himself increases response. Inviting the reader to quiz himself involves them with your advertisement. This can pay handsome dividends, as this split-run shows. 13. The 'close' is crucial in direct response. The reader who makes a mental note to 'mail the coupon later' usually never does. One survey showed that less than a third of readers who intended to send in a coupon did so. Ogilvy & Mather uses a four-point checklist to ensure that our copy does all it can to get the reader to act on the coupon before he turns the page. 14. The position of your advertisement can make the difference between profit and loss. Tests show that back page of publication, or the back of one of its sections, can pull 150 percent better than inside pages. 15. New direct response techniques—'merge-purge,' 'how-to' mailings, timing sequence—produce more response for every dollar invested. 16. Direct response is an indispensable element in successful new advertising. Direct response has proved to be a key ingredient in marketing travel. 17. Presenting copy can reduce costs and improve response rates. Ogilvy & Mather's Research Department has developed inexpensive techniques that rank copy promises layer mail or media testing. This saves time and money—and increases your chance for success. 18. Success can be expected. Ogilvy & Mather has found that direct response techniques, as used by the IRS, are frequently just as effective when applied abroad. We export the techniques of Ogilvy & Mather offices in 50 countries, and coordinate international campaigns through New York. Example: A series of new direct response advertisements and mailings, initiated in New York and carried out by our Paris office, tripled response for one of the leading book clubs in France. 19. The most accountable form of advertising. Claude Hopkins titled his famous book 'Scientific Advertising.' He emphasized that coupon feedback makes direct response the most accountable form of advertising. It allows you to measure exactly what every dollar invested returns in sales and profits. To evaluate the specific contribution direct response advertising makes to our clients' marketing programs, Results show direct response has increased sales and profits in almost every case.

An Invitation Ogilvy & Mather's Direct Response Division employs three dozen people who specialize in this demanding discipline. They are body of our experience—which can only be hinted at in the space available here—is available in a slide presentation: 'What Ogilvy & Mather has learned about direct response advertising.' To arrange a presentation, please mail the coupon.