It was 1964...
David Ogilvy launched his book, Confessions of an Advertising Man, with a full page ad.
The headline said it all...
Every secret but one* is in this book
The section that referenced the hidden secret started on pg. 93...
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"What you say is more important than how you say it...The selection of the right promise is so vitally important that you should never rely on guesswork to decide it...We use five research techniques to find out which is the most powerful."
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Ogilvy gave away 4 secrets on the next two pages...
Here was one of them...
He created some Big Ideas for a facial soap.
These ideas were shown to buyers on cards, packaging, and ads.
The winner:
Cleans Deep into Pores
Once he uncovered that little gem, here's what he did next...
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"From this voting came one of Helena Rubenstein's most successful face creams. We christened it Deep Cleanser, thus building the winning promise into the name of the product."
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So, they named the product using the Big Idea the buyers said was most important to them...
Here's a copy of one of their best ads...
This product made millions...
Here's the cool part...
45 years after Ogilvy first published his book, Tim Ferris used this very same secret to launch his own empire...
He brainstormed 6 different book titles, including...
> The 4-Hour Workweek
> Broadband and White Sand
> Millionaire Chameleon
He picked keywords related to his book, rotated his ads, and changed the headlines.
It was simple.
And the rest is history...
The winning title seems obvious only in hindsight...
And if his title ideas had been lame, you might be saying, "Timothy who?" right now...
This method still works...
Noah Kagan used the same method this year.
In fact, Noah Kagan's book just crossed 100,000 sales today (July 11th, 2024).
The details of his test are fascinating and you can find them all here.
(Spoiler: In that post, Noah reveals that James Clear tested 300 different covers for Atomic Habits, which was the bestselling book on all of Amazon in 2023.)
Ogilvy went on to say...
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"Unless your advertising contains a Big Idea, it will pass like a ship in the night."
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Here are the 3 steps:
1. Create Big Ideas...
2. Test them on buyers...
3. Run with the winner...
This system works for any part of your business.
Emails, Facebook ads, website copy, product ideas, ad design, optin forms, etc.
The tool to help you find your Big Ideas fast is The Genius Machine™...
Using this software, you'll be able to come up with really Big Ideas, so you can test like David Ogilvy, Tim Ferris, and Noah Kagan.
Click here for more info...
I look forward to seeing you inside the Members' Area...
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