“…Go and tell the guy what you want.”

The wisdom of David Mackenzie Ogilvy (1911-1999)

This is trenchant advice on how to write well—still relevant almost 45 years after it was written by David Ogilvy, who was renowned in the late 20th century as “The Father of Modern Advertising.”

Now, to be sure, Ogilvy’s legendary sway in the ad biz was recognized in pre-internet, pre-wired, pre-Twitter days when ad copy was deemed more salient and more powerful than ad buzz.

Indeed, Ogilvy’s famous memo “How To Write” was circulated far beyond the Mad Men-world of his agency, Ogilvy & Mather, after he wrote it on September 7, 1982.

Here it is:

Read the Roman-Raphaelson book on writing. Read it three times.

Write the way you talk. Naturally.

Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.

Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.

Never write more than two pages on any subject.

Check your quotations.

Never send a letter or a memo on the day you write it. Read it aloud the next morning—and then edit it.

If it is something important, get a colleague to improve it.

Before you send your letter or your memo, make sure it is crystal clear what you want the recipient to do.

If you want ACTION, don’t write. Go and tell the guy what you want.

At this point, I know I shouldn’t embarrass myself by trying to reconceptualize or translate Ogilvy’s observations for you…

OK, I can’t resist this one: I think Item 10 is the best. In today’s wired world this can be translated to “If you want to reach an agreement or have an argument, don’t send a text or email when you can call the other party or talk face-to-face.”

Note: the reference in Item 1 is to a now-standard work by Kenneth Roman and Joel Raphaelson, Writing That Works: How to Communicate Effectively in Business. A 3rd edition was issued in 2000.

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Book review: Shantung Compound

They didn’t care much

about each other…

by Langdon Gilkey

click here

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My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems with 52 free verse and haiku poems,

and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)

and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”