Comments on: Case Study Results: David Ogilvy vs. Bill Bernbach

By: mrgreenam

mrgreenam — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 04:43:23 +0000

All your points are valid. But like you said the this test had too many limitations.

It was create for a bit of light entertainment. I did it out of curiosity. Sometimes I need to create my own limitations to keep my job stimulating. I am very interested in Ogilvy\’s and Bernbach\’s work. Since I was running Facebook ads at the time I thought \”what the heck\”.

This is not meant to be a scholarly article just a random test using some crazy rules.

I do appreciate your feed back though.

By: Omar Khafagy

Omar Khafagy — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 15:55:58 +0000

This test has way too many limitations to be valid. First, Ogilvy was a major proponent of long copy. While he valued brevity, he believed that long copy sold more. The copy that won had the shortest amount of information. And I'd hardly call 100% Free a "Call to Action". A call to action is "Play Now, 100% Free!"

I would wager that the reason the first ad had more sales is that it qualified the people before they clicked on it. "If you want to do the following, play this game". The people who didn't want to, didn't click. The people who DID want to, DID click. And because they already wanted to, they were more likely to buy it.

The last ad didn't succeed in doing that at all, and in fact is a poor swipe of the original ad for Avis. Avis was positioning itself as an underdog that, because of its status, would work harder for ME. It used the word "you". Your ad doesn't use the word "you" at all. Instead it just says "we, we, we." I don't care about the company selling me the product/service. I care about what that product/service will do for me.

So why did it have such a high click thru rate? Simple. I think it was mostly do to the last line "we load faster" and the curiosity-based questioning headline (Which was unsatisfactorily answered in the body copy). I'm going to click on it for the same reason that I click on a vague, but interesting, blurb on Engadget… I want to know what the heck they're talking about.

Once that curiosity is satisfied, I have no reason to stick around. So I go away.

But this is in no way a comparison between two methods and views on advertising… it's really just a piece about how a good set of targeted, qualifying bullets can triumph over curiosity-based copy (Something Caples figured out a long time ago and put in his book "Tested Advertising Methods").

An interesting comparison for that reason, but the pretense of a casestudy between Ogilvy and Bill Bernach is frankly bunk.

By: Local Internet Marke

Local Internet Marke — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 00:27:12 +0000

Great case study, I like how you choose to target a location where costs are smaller. This is something that most people forgot to test!

By: Näin tehdään nettimainos, jonka kaikki lukevat - Indexwar

Näin tehdään nettimainos, jonka kaikki lukevat - Indexwar — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 13:20:18 +0000

[...] esimerkki on tämä case study, jossa testattiin David Ogilvyn ja Bill Bernachin klassisten mainostyyppien tehoa Facebooksissa. [...]

By: Lorenzo Green

Lorenzo Green — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 01:23:25 +0000

It's a facebook app.

By: ben

ben — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 20:50:53 +0000

since FB don't allow download offers i wander how you would promote this

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 22:26:30 +0000

Great case study. I enjoyed all of the ads!

By: jack

jack — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 22:11:27 +0000

An interesting thing Im not sure too many people do but I will be trying is targeting college students by state school, and naming out their schools acronym in the headline.

Im sure this will have some sort of positive effect on ctr/roi, i smell a test!

By: jack

jack — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 22:10:03 +0000

Totally going straight to FB and implementing this for my biznez

By: sebastian

sebastian — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 12:17:38 +0000

holy crapness lord.

never thought about using aline of copy above the image in the same image.

that made ma day broda.

cheers and keep the quality work