#213 Thursday 31 July 2025
https://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2025/07/213-headlines-dupe-dupe.html
Posted by Denny Hatch
"The Wickedest of All Sins Is to Run
An Advertisement Without a Headline."
—David Ogilvy
This artsy-craftsy, zero-headline ad ran as a full page in Fortune magazine. Because it had no offer, nothing to sell, nothing
to entice the reader into reading the copy (the paltry total of 13
words!), no coupon or order mechanism, no address or phone number to ask
for more information, it was impossible to come up with the ROI —
Return on Investment.
This is like peeing in blue serge. It makes you feel good and nobody notices.
• In
the world of advertising, they are called headlines.
• Newspaper journalists call them heds.
• On book covers, special reports, white
papers, articles, short
stories, blogs and press releases they are called titles.
• On memos and e-mails they are the subject lines.
• On a direct mail envelope the illustration and text are
the teaser.
• Whatever the medium — a headline,
title or teaser — it's what
your reader sees first.
• "The headline selects the reader."
—Direct
marketing guru Axel Andersson.
• "Writing headlines is one of the greatest journalist arts."
—Claude Hopkins
• "Headlines, subject lines, teasers and
titles are the hot pants
on the hooker."
—Bill Jayme
• "Headlines make ads work. The
best headlines appeal to
people’s self-interest or give news."
—John Caples
• "Long headlines
that say something out-pull short headlines
that say nothing."
—John Caples
• "Remember that every headline has one job. It must stop
your prospects with a believable promise."
—John Caples
• "In TV, it’s
the start of the commercial. In radio, it's the first
few words. In a letter, the first
paragraph. Even a telephone
call has a headline. Come up with a good headline,
and you’re
almost sure to have a good ad. But even the greatest writer
can’t save an ad with a poor headline. You can’t make an ad
pull unless people stop to read your brilliant
copy."
—John Caples
• Don't
ask questions in teasers and headlines that can be
answered yes or no.
This gives control of the communication
to your reader."
—George Duncan
The Lodestar of the Crown Jewel in My Library,
OGILVY ON ADVERTISING:
I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information. When I write an advertisement, I don't want you to tell me that you find it 'creative.' I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product. When Aeschines spoke, they said, 'How well he speaks.' But when Demosthenes spoke, they said, 'Let us march against Philip.'
David Ogilvy on Headlines
The
headline is the ticket on the meat. Use it to flag down
readers who are prospects for the kind of products you are advertising.
If you want mothers to read your advertisement, display MOTHERS in your
headline. And so on. Conversely do not say anything in your headline which is likely
to exclude any readers who might be prospects for your product.
On the average, five times as many
people read the headline as read the body copy. It follows that if you don’t
sell the product in your headline, you have wasted 90% of your money.
The headlines that work best are those which promise the reader a benefit.
Headline Length. In
headline tests conducted with cooperation of a big department store, it
was found that headlines of 10 words or longer sold more goods than
short headlines. In terms of recall, headlines between 8 and 10 words
get the most coupon returns. In the average, long headlines sell more
merchandise than short ones — headlines like our: "At 60 miles an hour,
the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric
clock."
News and headlines. Headlines that contain news are sure-fire. Time after time we have found that it
pays to inject genuine news into headlines.
Simple headlines. Your headline should telegraph what
you want to say — in simple language. Readers do not stop to decipher the
meanings of obscure headlines.
Localize headlines.
In local advertising, it pays to
include the name of the city in your headline.
Typography. The more typographical changes you make in
your headline, the fewer people will read it.
Capital Letters. Set your headline, and indeed your whole
advertisement, in upper/lower case. CAPITAL LETTERS ARE MUCH HARDER TO READ, PROBABLY
BECAUSE WE LEARN TO READ in lower case. People read all their books, newspapers and magazines in lower case.
Surprinting. Never deface your illustration by printing
your headline over it. Old-fashioned art directors love doing this, but it
reduces the attention value of the advertisement by an average of 19
percent. Newspaper editors never do
it. In general, imitate the editors;
they form the reading habits of their customers.
Blind Headlines. Some headlines are “blind." They don’t say what the product is, or what it will do for you. They are about
20 per cent below average in recall.
Humor. Don't use humor or puns. People don't buy from clowns.
From OGILVY ON ADVERTISING.
—David Ogilvy
Three of the Most Powerful (and Successful!)
Advertising Headlines in the 20th Century!
Note: These three ads appeared in Julian Lewis Watkins' masterpiece: THE 100 GREATEST ADVERTISEMENTS 1852-1958 — WHO WROTE THEM AND WHAT THEY DID.
All
three ads have order coupons in the lower right corner. No phone
numbers. (These were created decades before telemarketing.) No email
address. To order a product took work on the buyer's part: you had to
fill out
the little coupon by hand. Then cut it out of the newspaper or
magazine, insert it in an envelope, address the envelope, lick the
envelope flap, lick and affix a First Class Stamp and finally go to the
post office to mail it.
Below is Perhaps the Most Legendary
Headline in the History of Advertising.
This
ad ran in myriad newspapers for many years as did many imitations. It
was written and designed in 1925 by 25-year-old cub copywriter John
Caples. He had a 60-year career and went on to become CEO of the
advertising agency BBD&O that today has 15,000 employees spread
across 289 offices in 81 countries.
As Victor O. Schwab, of Schwab & Beatty wrote in the November 1939 issue of Printers' Ink Monthly, "When
an advertisement does a noteworthy job all of us can learn something
from it, no matter what it is selling. Mr. Schwab had in mind the ad
that sold a million books: How to Win Friends and Influence People. That
is, it had sold a million books between December 1936 and November
1939. The sales to date aren't terribly important here; any ad that
brings in cash for a million copies in three years via the coupon route, is one whale of a great ad!"
—Julian Lewis Watkins.
Written
and designed in 1918 by Maxwell Sackheim who, with Harry Schermann, founded
Book-of-the-Month Club in 1926. This masterpiece ran continuously for
40 years without change, with the exception of slipping a new and better
testimonial into the copy occasionally.
Takeaways to Consider.
These
headlines were not slapped together as afterthoughts. For master
copywriter Claude Hopkins copy was secondary to headlines. He often
spent:
"... hours on a single headline. Often scores of headlines are discarded before the right one is selected. For the entire return from an ad depends on attracting the right sort of readers. The best of salesmanship has no chance whatever unless we get a hearing.
"The vast difference in headlines is shown by keyed returns... The identical ad run with various headlines differs tremendously in its returns. It is not uncommon for a change in headlines to multiply returns from five or 10 times over."
Hopkins'
observation directly relates to all other writing. A poorly written
headline, subject line, teaser or title guarantees poor readership.
Consider
the schlub of a corporate executive who spends hours — perhaps days —
writing, rewriting and perfecting a career-changing email and then slams
out the first idea for a subject line that pops into his or her head
and hits SEND!
Copy wizard John Caples echoes the wisdom of Claude Hopkins on the importance of headlines:
• "What do people see of advertising? Headlines! What do you yourself see of advertising as you glance through a newspaper or magazine? Headlines! What decides whether or not you stop for a moment and look at and advertisement or even read a little of it? The headline!
• "Now, I spend hours on headlines—days if necessary. And when I get a good headline, I know that my task is nearly finished. Writing the copy can usually be done in a short time if necessary. And that advertisement will be a good one — that is, if the headline is really a 'stopper.'
• "What good is all the painstaking work on copy if the headline isn't right? If the headline doesn't stop people, the copy might as well be written in Greek.
• "If the headline of an advertisement is poor, the best copywriters in the world can't write copy that will sell goods. On the other hand, if the headline is a good one, it is a relatively simple matter to write the copy."
These four prior paragraphs apply to all communications today —
print, online, TV.
###
A Riveting Rave Review of Denny Hatch's Masterpiece.
By Oluchi Samuel
10 December 2024
An official OnlineBookClub.org review of Method Marketing by Denny Hatch.
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METHOD MARKETING
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###
