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Ogilvy on Advertising — Chapter-09: Advertising corporations
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9 ADVERTISING CORPORATIONS ‘With public opinion on its side, nothing can fail.’ Abraham Lincoln Once upon a time, the head of a big corporation went into Cartier’s and ordered a diamond bracelet for his wife. ‘Send the bill to my office,’ said he. Nothing doing – Carter had never heard of is corporation. The next morning he instructed his agency to prepare a corporate advertising campaign. Eighty-one out of the hundred biggest American corporations advertise their corporations as distinct from their products, and spend about $500,000,000 a year in the process. Most of them make a hash of it. However, if well planned and executed, corporate advertising can be a profitable investment. Opinion Research Corporation has found that people who know a company well are five times more likely to have a favorable opinion of it. Corporate advertising can improve the morale of your employees; who wants to work for an outfit that nobody has ever heard of?. It can also make it easier to recruit better people, at all levels. And, I believe, it can make your corporation a more seductive suitor in takeover bids. Discretion stops me naming a rich corporation which has recently failed in several takeover bids because its image is unattractive. Can corporate advertising make a good impression on the investment community? Yes it can, and this is the unspoken purpose of most such campaigns. A study conducted at Northwestern University examined the stock performance of 731 corporations, and found that corporate advertising had an average positive
influence of 2 per cent on the price of their stock. If you think this trivial, reflect that if a corporation has a market value of $40 billion – and some do – that extra 2 per cent adds up to $800,000,000. Not to be sneezed at. DuPont has run corporate advertising for 47 years, General Electric for 62 years, American Telephone for 75 years, US Steel for 46 years, and Container Corporation for 50 years. But the majority of corporate advertising campaigns are aborted too soon to achieve any measurable objective. You cannot rely on short-term advertising to turn the tide of hostile public opinion in your favor, to boost the price of your stock or to put a halo around your reputation. In 1941, when Texaco was accused of selling oil to the Nazis, they assumed sponsorship of the Metropolitan Opera on radio, but it took a long time for this lovely antidote to exorcize their bad publicity. Most corporate campaigns are short-lived because they don’t start with any clear objective, and because research is not used to track their progress. A glowing exception is DuPont, who for many years measured progress after each television program. Corporate campaigns seldom have more than one supporter – the Chief Executive Officer. He alone has the vision to recognize its long-term value. His marketing executives regard any diversion of advertising dollars from their products as a frivolous waste of money, and his financial officers cast greedy eyes on the appropriation whenever there is a shortfall in earnings. The copy in most corporate advertisements is distinguished by a self-serving, flatulent pomposity which defies reading, and agencies waste endless hours concocting slogans of incredible fatuity. Consider these beauties: Diamond Shamrock: The resourceful company. Honeywell: The automation company. Boise Cascade: A company worth looking at. Georgia Pacific: The growth company. Dravo: A company of uncommon enterprise. Textron: THE company. (sic) General Motors: People building transportation to serve PEOPLE. Toyota: Serving PEOPLE’S needs in a hundred basic ways. Firestone: As long as Firestone keeps thinking about PEOPLE, PEOPLE will keep thinking about Firestone. Siemens: Siemens turns ideas into PEOPLE. ITT: The best ideas are the ideas that help PEOPLE. General Electric: 100 years of progress for PEOPLE.
Western Electric: We make things that bring PEOPLE closer. US Steel: We’re involved. Crown Zellerbach: We help make it happen. Sperry Rand: We understand how important it is to listen. Rockwell International: Where science gets down to business. J.C. Penney We know what you’re looking for. Chemetron: We’re basic to success. Notice that all these bromides are interchangeable – any company could use any of them. They generally appear at the bottom of advertisements, where nobody reads them, and, by cluttering up the layout, they reduce readership of the copy. Many corporate campaigns fail because they are under-funded. Companies which spend millions on advertising their brand names are curiously stingy when it comes to their corporate campaigns. The most sensible way to set the budget is to ‘analyse the task’. How much will it cost to achieve a specific goal among a specific audience? Another common mistake is to confine the campaign to magazines and newspapers. When you add television, tracking studies record a dramatic increase in penetration. A word of warning to Chief Executive Officers: if you appear in your own commercials, you will be recognized wherever you go and thus become an easier target for kidnappers. More serious, you may not say your lines as well as a professional announcer. ALPHABET SOUP Whatever you do, for goodness’ sake, don’t change the name of your corporation to initials. Everybody knows what IBM, ITT, CBS and NBC are, but how many of the following can you identify: AC, ADP, AFIA, AIG, AM, AMP, BBC (Brown Boveri and British Broadcasting), CBI, CF, CNA, CPT, CEX, DHL, FMC, GA, GE, GM, GMAC, GMC, GTE, HCA, IM, INA, IU, JVC, MCI, NIB, NCP, NCR, NDS, NEC, NLT, NT, OPIC (not to be confused with OPEC), TIE, TRW, UBS. Yet this is how 37 corporations sign their advertisements. It will take them many years and many millions of dollars to teach their initials to their publics. What a waste of money. CAN ADVERTISING INFLUENCE LEGISLATION?
William H. Vanderbilt, the railroad tycoon, used to say, ‘The public be damned.’ Abraham Lincoln thought otherwise: ‘With public opinion on its side, nothing can fail. With public opinion against it, nothing can succeed.’ Where do people get their information on public issues? Largely from television, and less from the newscasts than from folk heroes like Robert Blake and Jane Fonda. Ms. Fonda says things like this on television: ‘You’d better get the guts to stand up to the black shadow of oil before it spills across your desk, oozes into your campaign coffers, seals your ears and blackens your hearts. Because if you do not hear our cries now, you will harvest the grapes of wrath.’ Just try writing advertisements which can deal with this kind of rhetoric. In recent years corporations have been using advertising in attempts to influence public opinion on such issues as energy, nationalization and foreign imports. The trouble is that very few readers believe what corporations say. In 1979–80, the Media Institute studied the image of businessmen as they are portrayed in television programs. Two out of three are portrayed as foolish, greedy or criminal. They are seldom shown doing anything socially useful. (I know many businessmen who devote so much time to ‘socially useful’ things, it’s a wonder their stockholders put up with it.) Most senior executives are curiously unaware of what goes on in the liberal community. As a recent article in the Harvard Business Review said, ‘While businessmen were minding their own business, intellectuals were busy developing a powerful case against capitalism.’ Political and social naïveté can be a handicap when companies run into political difficulty. Some advertising campaigns seem to have been successful in influencing legislation. Bethlehem Steel, for example, used advertising to win public support for their position on imported steel. I am told that it helped the passage of a bill protecting the steel industry. When the forest industry was under attack by environmentalists for being irresponsible in its use of national resources, Weyerhaeuser used television advertising to demonstrate that they are highly responsible. Research indicated that the advertising worked. The attacks abated. A few years ago, the British Labour Party announced their intention to nationalize the banks. Six months of well-argued advertising produced good research numbers, and the banks have not been nationalized.
For three years Eli Lilly used television advertising to argue the case against legislation that would have required doctors to prescribe generic medicines. It is thought that the campaign may have helped to head off this threat to their bread and butter. Advertising whose purpose is to influence public opinion is more likely to be successful if it follows these principles: If the issue is complicated, and it almost always is, simplify it as much as you reasonably can. For example, the consumer is bombarded with confusing information about what food is nutritious, or even safe. In 1981 General Foods ran a series of advertisements which gave people simple advice on the subject. A classic example of simplifying a complicated issue was the headline on a Chesapeake and Ohio advertisement: ‘A Hog Can Cross the Country Without Changing Trains – But YOU Can’t!’ But watch out. Simplistic distortion can insult people’s intelligence and do you more harm than good. Present your case in terms of the reader’s self-interest. For some years Mobil has been trying to influence public opinion by running exceptionally trenchant advertisements. The head of Mobil says that they have produced positive results, but I have reason to think that they work better with the well-educated minority than with the public at large. The advertisements make little or no appeal to the ordinary citizen’s self interest. Disarm with candor. ARMCO had a reputation as the worst polluter in Houston. They tackled the problem with advertising that told how they had changed their ways. It produced a measurable improvement in their reputation. Give both sides of the issue. In confronting the anti-highway and anti-strip-mining pressure groups, Caterpillar Tractor gave both sides of the issue. Know who your target is. You can reach Congressmen and others in the Federal Government with a campaign that need not cost more than $800,000 a year, but it won’t do you much good. Unless legislators know that you are talking to their constituents, they turn a deaf ear. As Ralph Nader is reported to have said, ‘If you are weak on the streets, you are weak.’ When Congress was considering a windfall profits tax on oil companies, several of them ran argumentative advertisements directed to Congressmen. But social and political pressures were so great, and demagoguery so rampant, that the
bill was enacted. The campaign might have worked if it had started earlier, if it had been addressed to the general public and if it had been written with more balance. Many corporations have told me that they need only reach ‘thought leaders’ – the people who influence other people. This sounds sensible, and not too expensive. The problem is that nobody really knows who the thought leaders are. Bishops? Bartenders? Political busybodies? Garrulous taxi drivers? Thought leaders are spread throughout the population. In most cases your only hope of making a dent on public opinion is to advertise to the public at large – and to use television. Television is the battleground on which public opinion is formed. BAD NEWS If your purpose is to affect legislation, the Internal Revenue Service does not allow the cost of your advertising to be treated as a business expense. Worse still, the television networks will not accept ‘advocacy’ advertising. So you have to use local spots, market by market. You will probably end up with a combination of local television, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and some upper-crust magazines. • • • Most advocacy campaigns are too little and too late. They are addressed to the wrong audience, lack a defined purpose, don’t go on long enough, are weak in craftsmanship, and advocate a hopeless cause. So they fail. Advocacy advertising is not a job for beginners.
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“I don't know who you are. I don'tknowyour company. I don't know your company's product. I don'tknowwhatyourcompany stands for. Idon'tknowyourcompany's customers. I don't know your company's record. Idon'tknowyourcompany'sreputation. Now-whatwas ityou wantedtosell me?” MoORAL:Sales start beforeyour salesman calls-with business publication advertisin MCGRAW-HILLMAGAZINE
This advertisement summarizes the case for corporate advertising. Sears devotes most of its gigantic advertising budget to price-off merchandise, but in 1961 I persuaded them to add a campaign which would burnish their corporate image by promulgating their policies. Some of their executives thought it was a pansy waste of money because it did not directly sell merchandise, but Chairman Kelstadt took a longer view. When Joe Cushman succeeded Kelstadt, he told me, ‘My father was ashamed when I went to work for Sears. Today, nobody is ashamed to work for Sears. Thank you.’
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minit cape aheut coitr $575 How to buy mink at Sears for Christmas sTHERE any woman in the worid who percent. Any fur expert will tell you this represents know they are sure to get harge and regular orders wouldn't like this mink for Christmas? fanitastic value. He'll wonder how Sears does it. as long as they meet these standards This helps Look again at the picture. This is a matural mink The answer is knowing bour to buy mink and them cut costs. They pass the savings on to Sears Ie te mid. team. sidhaaai ta han ferum and Sears basses them on to vonu.
More image-building for Sears. Who would expect Sears to sell mink? This campaign emphasized IBM’s involvement in people’s daily lives – in this case, how IBM helped speed up traffic in New York’s rush hour.
Ads like this helped pass a bill protecting this industry against the dumping of foreign steel.
This corporate campaign was created to please the governments of countries in which Esso did business.
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did you say button? Every year or so we ask our store man- agers to keep count, over a four week per- iod, of the special services we perform, The most recent check (Mar 4-Mar 30) has just been tabulated and shows a total of 1153assists.Among other thingswe sewed on334buttons,supplied295collar stays and buttons,donated 166 pairs of shoelaces,cleaned up2uy spotsand punched new holes in 56 belts. And we made 86 special office deliveries. These, you understand, were all emer. gency repairs and services, provided on a while-you-wait basis,made without charge and not limited to Wallachs regular cus- tomers or to clothes originally bought at Wallachs. The next time you need sartorial first aid of any kind, go straight to any Wallachs store and don't be bashful aboutasking for help. We welcome every opportunity to be of service. We'd like to beat that figure of 1158as soon aspossible. what size does he wear? “He's about your height, perhaps a little heavier, has brown hair and graduated two years ago.What size shirt do you think I oughtto getforhim?” Questions.like that are routine to any salesman in any men's wear store.For although women are expectedtoknowwhat size clothes are worn by their husbands, sons, fathers, brothers or beaus, the feat is ahuianalu imnaeeihlaFuoru man wogre an
In the author’s judgement, this is the best corporate campaign by any retailer. The copy was written by Leslie Pearl, and appeared in the New York Times three times a week for 26 years. Woven into the copy was the idea that Wallachs not only sold superior clothes, but also gave unusually attentive, personal and friendly service. Before the campaign started, a survey was conducted to see how men and women rated the men’s clothing stores in New York. Wallachs came in last. Ten years later Wallachs headed the list.
This may well be the best advertisement about a public issue that has ever appeared.
A corporate advertisement in a series by Ogilvy & Mather for General Foods. A complicated subject expounded with simplicity.
ARMCO used corporate advertising to tell the people in Houston what they were doing about pollution in the ship channel.
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Windfall profits or windfall tax? Last Thursday. President Carter unveiled his American oil down far below its replacemer latest energyprogram.It included a decision [cost] or its true value"But wilt his prograr to graduallydecontrol crudeoil prices.a step meet this test? Oil companies certainly aren we haveurgedforseveral years.The program getting replacement costtoday,ans the pre also includedproposalsforseveral newtaxes. posed new taxes would make it more difficu In urging these new taxes,the President to getreplacement costforcostlier oil tomo made several observationsaboutpresent and row future oil company profits.He said,for exam- The President has said that even with hi ple, that “unless we tax the oil companies. proposed taxes. oil companies would in they will reap huge and undeserved windtall crease their income by S6 billion over th profits.“He characterized current oil industry next three years.That sounds like a lot. But earnings as"already enormous, and pro. isn't, considering the job that has to be don posed a tax to curb those who would “cheat Mobil alone (with only about 5.5 percer the public and...damage ourcountry” of the U.S. gasoline market) expects 1 Let's examine the facts, and see if these spend over a third ofthat amountoverthe ne) observationsarejustified three years for increasing domestic energ
- Who gets what trom higher prices? supplies.ABankers TrustCompany studypi Here's what would happen to a dollar of in- the issue into perspective:the oil industryw creased prices under the President's pro. need at least s25 billion annually just to mei gram: projected dnilling requirements through 198: 50cents totheTreasury as a newtax Oil companies wll have to drill in deep Approximately 30 cents to federal and water, in harsher environments, where cos state governments in theformof increased in- are huge.And even the enhanced recovery! come taxes, state severance taxes,and roy already discovered reserves through ar altypayments vanced technologywill be an expensive tasl This would leave oil companies with ap- The President's tax plan would impose on th proximately 20 cents on the dollar,with the American consumer the burden of highi balancegoinglogovernment. prices withoutthe prospect of increased suy 2.Byanyfairtest,oilcompanyprolitability odxajoipapaukauowKemebupxenkaKid is below average.As Time magazine said on tionandproduction. April 16.1979:"...byanyyardstick.oil com- 4.Can theoil companiesbetrustedtop pany profits are not out of line with those in additional revenues into the search tor ne other U.S.industries...“None of our critics energy supplies? History_says yes Overth mentionsprofitability.which isthebasisforin- lastfive years,Mobil's capital and exploratid vestment decisions and for attracting ade- outlays of S8.2billionexceededourtotal ni quatesuppliesofcapital. incomeby$3.3billion,or67percentFort Mobil's rate of return on equity in 1978 latest five available years, the Chase Manha was 13.1percent,while thepetroleum industry tan Bank studyshowsthat forsome30 leadin oilcompaniescapitalandexpiorationoutia manutacturing industries was 15.9 percent. of S126 billion exceeded net income by S5 We earned 2.1 cents pergallon ol petroleum billion,or88percent. sold. It's clear that the President's tax progra 3.What willit take to stimulate significant would indeed create a windtall-a windtall t new production of oil and gas?President biggovernmentgettingevenbiggeronmont Carter himsell set the standard when he said government must stop““holding the price ot oil.
Mobil seeks to influence public opinion in advertisement which are remarkably for their no-holds-barred copy. They appeal to the educated minority.
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HardBeechr ondEqunfity Yhe real dertwocratieSimetieit ialca i im shat eten uuas slull fe on a letel xi ety Crut Hrasaf Weben SlaariDur ifeSarin Container Corporaltion of America
Container Corporation started advertising in 1937. The campaign was a succès d’estime among highbrow laymen, but I denounced it as an exercise in pretension. Forty-five years later the campaign is still running, and I have come to think it is one of the best corporate campaign that has ever appeared. Even when I don’t read the copy, I recognize the sponsor – like recognizing a man who dresses unlike other men. He looks different, so he must be different. There lies the secret; the campaign has differentiated Container Corporation.