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Tests Indicate Ogilvy’s Old-School Layout Still a Winner
Human nature hasn’t changed and neither have the priorities required for successfully conveying your message.
Contrary to common opinion, David Ogilvy didn’t have a preference for long copy.
What he had was an overwhelming bias towards anything that had been proven to work (which included long copy). Ogilvy’s real, professed preferences were for consumer testing, research-driven techniques, and performance-based advertising in the truest sense of the term.
Based on those things, the conclusion he came to was that messaging and relevance had to have highest priority. Everything else – creativity, design, layout – should be subordinated to the end goal of conveying a salient message in as persuasive a manner as possible. In print, this took the form of what has come to be known as “The Ogilvy Layout.”
Understanding Ogilvy’s Layout and Why it Still Works
There are three main parts to the Ogilvy Layout, with a corresponding and crucial quality for each element:
- The picture, which should have “story appeal”
- The headline, which should tie into the “story appeal” of the picture
- And the body copy, which most be placed in the right relationship to both the picture and the headline as to anticipate the reader’s visual preferences and enhance readability.
I’ve dealt with Story Appeal in previous posts, but let’s talk about headlines before diving into why Ogilvy’s favorite arrangement continues to stand the test of time.
What I’ve Noticed About Ogilvy’s Headlines
In his book, Ogilvy on Advertising, David Ogilvy writes about the importance of captions no less than 4 times, urging the reader to include captions underneath all of their photographs each and ever time. According to the research Ogilvy cites, 4 times as many readers read captions as body copy and 10 times as many people read headlines as body copy.
So while it may seem obvious that the headline and the main picture (or “hero shot” in today’s lingo) should be related, it also seems that you can grab even more reader-grabbing power for your headlines if you make use of some of the compelling “what’s this picture all about” draw of captions. Here’s a perfect example of this:
Pretty difficult not to read a bit more about that story, isn’t it?
Let’s Talk Layout and Arrangement
Here’s the thing: because of his attention to research, Ogilvy knew what many online copywriters are still learning:
**People scan and skim first and read second
and they only read IF their scan turns up something worthwhile.**
Now, in magazines, which are mostly read as a diversion, the first thing to get scanned are pictures. We are visual creatures and pictures typically convey a lot of information (and emotion) fast, so a strong visual is almost always going to be the first thing the eye fixes on when the reader is engaging in general browsing for interest. Please note, though, that this scanning order changes for task oriented individuals interacting with a website. People scanning a web page redefine “worthwhile” by relevance to their task, and therefore focus on the headlines first.
Getting back to magazine ads, if the picture is intriguing, the next thing a person will scan is the headline and possibly the caption. After that, and only after that, the person in question will skim (or read) the body copy.
For emphasis, this is THE order in which an audience will scan a magazine ad/page:
- Picture first,
- Headline second,
- Copy last.
To quote Ogilvy himself:
“Readers look first at the illustration, then at the headline, then at the copy. So put these elements in that order – illustration at the top, headline under the illustration, copy under the headline. If you put the headline above the illustration, you are asking people to scan in an order which does not fit their habit.”
And to paraphrase Steve Krug, don’t make the reader think; it’s just as easy to stop reading or engaging with the ad as it is to expend the extra effort navigating an oh-so-creative-but-against-the-grain layout.
Eye Tracking Heat Maps Prove the Power of Ogilvy’s Layout
The brilliant people over at Think Eye Tracking recently put three different car ads to the test: one Ogilvy-inspired 1-page layout compared to 2 new-school double-trucks (aka 2-page spreads). You can see their blog post about their tests here, but I’ve also posted the Ogilvy-inspired heat map below. Check it out:
Notice how the headline and body copy receive most of the attention. The picture draws the eye, but the messaging gets the most time and attention from the viewer/reader.
Unfortunately, a direct comparison of heat maps isn’t possible, because Think Eye Tracking only posted the heat map from the Porsche add and not the ones from the Mercedes and BMW ads. But they DID give percentages of each ad’s ability to create reader retention of various elements within the ad, including the call to action. Assuming that the call to action was made within or at the end of the body copy (a fairly safe assumption), we can see how the ads stack up in terms of getting people to read the copy/pay attention to the messaging:
- Ogilvy Layout/Porsche Ad: 59% of readers noted the call to action
- Mercedes Ad: 29%
- BMW Ad: 11%
The Ogilvy Layout doubled readership of the copy while using half the ad space!
Incidentally, the use of a 1-pager instead of a double-spread was also recommended by Ogilvy, as the double-spread cost much more but didn’t increase readership in proportion to its cost.
And for those of you who read this far, or who doubted Ogivly’s performance-based bias, enjoy this short video of Ogilvy addressing the Direct Marketers of his day:
Just for the record, while I DO draw some distinctions between the online world and old-school direct marketing, I also think that online “marketers” who stray too far from direct marketing principles end up producing websites like this:
www.porsche.co.uk/innerstrength
In case you’re wondering, yes, that is the URL used in the Porsche ad’s call to action. Just the sort of thing you’d remember after flipping through the ad isn’t it? Not.
Anyway, go ahead and frustrate yourself by interacting with that “piece of work” for awhile. You’ll undoubtedly find yourself wishing that the same, sane approach to design and layout had been used in creating the website as had been used in designing the ad.
P.S. I’m not advocating a literal use of the Ogilvy layout to a digital format, but rather an intelligent application of Ogilvy’s subordination of design, creativity, and layout to messaging. More about that in a follow up post…
[Editor's note: the author of this post is now blogging at jeffsextonwrites.com]
About the author
Jeff is a Persuasion Architect, Web copywriter, blogger, and instructor of FutureNow's Persuasive Online Copywriting workshop. Follow Jeff Sexton on twitter
More articles from Jeff Sexton
- Nobody wants to read your sh**!September 21st, 2009
- Redesign? Ask The Right Questions!September 18th, 2009
- Cross-post: How to Improve a Product Page, Part 1September 15th, 2009
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July 28th, 2009
12:42 pm
Wow, this is an excellent article! It is great to see the timeless and proven tactics still seem to apply today.
Mike
July 28th, 2009
12:47 pm
Interesting. I was just thinking while reading this that online we always lead with the headline for most content and landing pages. Wonder how that would work out for articles, etc. from an attention standpoint. We’re pretty constrained by CMS priorities there.
Definitely testing this on landing pages though. Great work as always, Jeff.
July 28th, 2009
12:52 pm
Very inspiring. Ready to put it into action online with websites and lead capture pages.
July 28th, 2009
12:54 pm
Excellent article.
July 28th, 2009
12:58 pm
Interesting stuff and some good grist for the testing mill, thanks Jeff.
For web pages I frequently use a headline embedded in the image itself, followed by a sub-head as “HTML text”…definitly going to see how those same pages do if the image text is removed and the sub-head is tightened up as a full headline.
July 28th, 2009
1:04 pm
[...] – Jeff Sexton, Tests Indicate Ogilvy’s Old School Layout Still a Winner [...]
July 28th, 2009
1:09 pm
Wow so the old is new again, great advise for web pages too. Good heatmap service at Crazyegg.com
July 28th, 2009
1:52 pm
Jeff, thanks for always bringing us the “good stuff.” This article is so pertinant to today’s furniture retailers. I wish I could get all 10,000 or so of them to read your story. Thanks.
July 28th, 2009
2:54 pm
Thank you for a great article. I’m in the process of planing the next layout of our website and this sure gives something to include in the considerations
July 28th, 2009
3:10 pm
Thanks for such a great blog. A great photo grabs attention! And the skim first and then read is an interesting concept. Hard research on that?
July 28th, 2009
3:33 pm
Thanks for the information.
July 28th, 2009
7:33 pm
Spot on. Shame so many of my clients take the copy, get a designer to make it pretty, then pay no attention to the UI.
July 29th, 2009
2:45 am
Where is the smell in Persuasion? The chemical reaction
July 29th, 2009
6:10 am
Good point about the Porsche website – first time i checked it out!
July 29th, 2009
6:21 am
Great article Jeff, many thanks for bringing the video to our attention, I’ve not seen it before.
July 29th, 2009
7:19 am
[...] Tests Indicate Ogilvy’s Old-School Layout Still a Winner | FutureNow’s GrokDotCom / Marketin… [...]
July 29th, 2009
9:14 am
Great article! It just shows great marketing ideas are timeless.
July 29th, 2009
9:29 am
Inspiring article. Looking forward to the follow up post.
July 29th, 2009
9:30 am
It’s really amazing how people try to over think design. Simple will never go out of style.
Great article.
July 29th, 2009
10:28 am
Great post and very thought provoking. However its not that surprising, Ogilvy was a genius.
July 29th, 2009
11:17 am
Thank you to everyone for all the great comments. Just wanted to answer Susan Weinschenk’s question:
Most of the hard research on how web visitors scan pages has been done by Jakob Nielson. This article, along with the content it links to, should be more than enough to get you started:
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html
Hope that helps.
- Jeff
July 29th, 2009
6:05 pm
Excellent post, Jeff. I’ve leveraged so much of Ogilvy’s learnings in the past that I’ve internalized them – which is good and bad. It’s wonderful to have a breakdown of exactly WHY we do it the way we do. Thank you!
BTW – you’ve also convinced me to go out and buy the book. Not an easy feat. Well done.
July 30th, 2009
4:06 am
Great comments!! This can merge into a nice homepage layout.
July 30th, 2009
6:35 am
That’s weird. I’d expect with all the research in the field people would come up with something better by now.
July 31st, 2009
4:57 am
[...] recently read an enlightening article – Tests Indicate Ogilvy’s Old-School Layout Still a Winner – where Jeff Sexton discusses some of the beliefs held by advertising mogul David Ogilvy. [...]
August 1st, 2009
12:01 pm
[...] Grokdotcom met en avant les travaux du génial publicitaire David Ogilvy et son travail remarqué dans la presse. Je ne connaissais pas David Ogilvy mais il a visiblement écrit un livre intitulé “Ogilvy on advertising” dans lequel il décrypte les résultats de tests assez surprenants. Je détaille ici pour vous l’article de Grokdotcom et la méthode Ogilvy. [...]
August 2nd, 2009
11:12 am
[...] Shared Tests Indicate Ogilvy’s Old-School Layout Still a Winner | FutureNow’s GrokDotCom / Marketin… [...]
August 3rd, 2009
9:29 am
[...] came across this bit o’ trivia while writing my post on Ogilvy’s preferred ad layout. I found it written up by Robert Rosenthal at Freaking Marketing, who had done the detective work [...]
August 3rd, 2009
9:32 am
[...] came across this bit o’ trivia while writing my post on Ogilvy’s preferred ad layout. I found it written up by Robert Rosenthal at Freaking Marketing, who had done the detective [...]
August 3rd, 2009
11:10 am
[...] Pruebas señalan que los Lay-Outs de la vieja escuela de Ogilvy aún son ganadores. Una disección publicitaria que tiene un gran valor por la forma en como se describe la eficiencia de todos los elementos que se incrustan en un anuncio. [...]
August 3rd, 2009
12:15 pm
He hits the nail directly on the head with the ‘Chasm’ that separates the Direct Advertising & General Advertising worlds. I’ve never heard it so well explained. Although the the worlds have slowly started to come together, their is still plenty of ignorance from the General Advertising world.
August 3rd, 2009
4:38 pm
Great article Jeff. I studied Ogilvy in my advertising class in college. Thanks.
August 4th, 2009
10:50 am
There’s no question that if David Ogilvy was starting out today he’d join an SEM firm or site design. It’s interesting to note that he spent the depression selling stoves door-to-door in Scotland learning what propositions resulted in getting in the door and which didn’t. Old school version of AdWord testing.
August 31st, 2009
11:53 am
Jeff, great article… I’ve just seen that Ogilvy video for the first time and landed here while searching for a transcript. So your piece above was an added bonus. I/we’ve long tested and taught Ogilvy’s ideas and I can confidently agree, he figured out a lot long ago that way too many now have either never absorbed or completely forgotten.
September 10th, 2009
4:10 am
[...] How to fight back: Tug at their heartstrings so they’ll open the purse strings. Good photography has the ability to provoke an emotional reaction. Use that to your advantage. Whenever possible, avoid using weak place-holder images in your mock-ups. Before you present any mock, even an early iteration, take some time to find great imagery that helps communicate their brand and your design. And don’t be afraid to draw on some expert advice on the subject. When David Ogilvy wrote his classic book Ogilvy On Advertising, one of the key lessons was the importance of a good image for memorable design. And, as the good folks over at FutureNow write, “Tests Indicate Ogilvy’s Old-School Layout Still a Winner”. [...]
October 15th, 2009
4:56 am
excellent post!
It is inctedibel how people try to think the design over and over.