"On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar."
— David Ogilvy
On The Average Five Times As
On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.
About this quote
From Confessions of an Advertising Man (1963), Chapter 6, on writing headlines. Ogilvy's research, informed by the readership studies of Daniel Starch, consistently showed that the vast majority of readers never advance past the headline. He concluded that a writer who buries the main message in body copy has effectively wasted most of their budget.
Source
Confessions of an Advertising Man, Chapter 6 (1963)
