David Ogilvy claimed to have spent more time on headlines than on any other element of his advertising. He tested obsessively. He kept records. He read the research. And the conclusion he reached — which he stated plainly in his books, his presentations, and his memos to staff — was that five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. Which meant that an advertisement with a poor headline had already failed before anyone reached the first sentence.

This observation is not new. It is not obscure. It has been reproduced in copywriting literature for sixty years. And yet the headlines produced by most businesses — in their emails, on their websites, in their social content — demonstrate almost no awareness of it. They are vague where they should be specific. They are clever where they should be clear. They attempt to intrigue when they should be attempting to inform. The result is that the reader makes the only rational decision available: they don't read the rest.

The formula Ogilvy returned to throughout his career was not complicated. It is, however, consistently misunderstood — because its power is invisible until you understand what problem it is actually solving.