You’ve been working hard, so why don’t you take a minute to kick back and relax?

Draw the shades.

And don’t forget to get your popcorn ready.

Today’s your lucky day: Shark Week comes early!

Your ads after a David Ogilvy Makeover.

Do yourself (and your wallet) and huge favor and watch this short video from David Ogilvy.

You’ll have to overlook the subpar sound quality.

If it helps, remind yourself that he was practically Madison Avenue royalty.

Or, that started one of the most successful advertising agencies the world has ever seen.

And . . . oh yeah . . . that he made enough money writing copy to retire to a former castle mansion in France called the Château de Touffou.

Without further ado, here’s the video:

This guy made too much sense for his own good, huh?

I find myself referring back to it whenever I want to ground myself in the fundamentals.  Helps a lot with today’s information overload problem and keeps you focused on what’s actually important.

Anyways, here are my bullet point “takeaways” from the Mr. Ogilvy’s video.  I hope they give you something to take home, put into action, and make more money:

• There are two different camps in advertising: direct response advertising and general advertising.  General advertising is common among large, well-funded companies . . . but what they do probably doesn’t apply to you.

• Good news: we live a time of great opportunity to reach people through direct response advertising.  And direct response advertising is the only way we can measure how successful our ads are.

• Stop “worshiping at the altar of creativity” or entertainment when it comes to ads.  Put a premium on what works (i.e. what gets people to do what you want them to do) and discard the rest.

• Once you design ads that are streamlined to sell, and those ads convert, you’ll “taste blood” and won’t want to go back to witty, “fluff” ads.  You’ll be hooked.

So, time to take a look at your current ads.

Are they lean, mean sharks designed to sniff out the faintest whiff of consumer desire and pounce?

Or are they cute, entertaining, but ultimately forgettable sea creatures?

P.S. To find out more about David Ogilvy’s business philosophy, advertising techniques, and all-around awesome life, I definitely recommend you check out his books. Ogilvy on Advertising and Confessions of an Advertising Man are my personal favorites.  I’m sure I will write more about Ogilvy in future posts, so stay tuned.

P.P.S. What was the most important thing you learned from David Ogilvy’s video?  Leave me a comment and let me know!