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Bill Bernbach, Rosser Reeves and David Ogilvy surely were the three greatest brand-advertising thinkers. And as most of my readers know by now, I consider David Ogilvy the greatest of them all.

Here are some of Ogilvy's gems:

• Advertising agencies…are now infested with people who regard advertising as an avant-garde art form. They have never sold anything in their lives. Their ambition is to win awards at the Cannes Festival. They bamboozle their unfortunate clients into paying millions of dollars a year to exhibit their originality.

• 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. The headline is the ‘ticket on the meat.’ Use it to flag down readers who are prospects for the kind of product you are advertising.

  What you're really doing with your headline, then, is separating out the readers who would be interested in what you are selling from those who wouldn't.

  If they aren't prospects for what you sell, you don't want them reading your ad. Period.

• I belong to the school which holds that a good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself. It should rivet the reader's attention on the product. Instead of saying, ‘What a clever advertisement,’ the reader says, ‘I never knew that before. I must try this product.'

• It is the professional duty of the advertising agent to conceal his artifice. When Aeschines spoke, they said, ‘How well he speaks.’ But when Demosthenes spoke, they said, ‘Let us march against Philip.’ I'm for Demosthenes.

I was reminded of these Ogilvy insights when I came across this ad for DHL. As it happens, I learned, it was done by the agency that still bears his name. But, as is common but ironically true in the advertising agency world, the founder's principles were abandoned long ago.

It's not fair to single them out for this, however. The faults I spotted essentially can be found in most large agencies' creative output.

And it's hard to say where the fault lies. Do agency clients demand advertising that's clever at the price of ineffectiveness? Or do agencies, in Ogilvy's words, “bamboozle their unfortunate clients into paying millions of dollars a year to exhibit their originality”? Whatever the explanation, it is a mindset that permeates the advertising world.

As you may have gathered by now, I didn't care for this DHL ad.

The “headline” cleverly simulates a shipping sticker — I think.

It consists of three words: “Consider it Done.”

The meaning of this is to be deciphered by looking at the DHL logo and the small print below: “When you give us your business, we'll give it our all. Customer service is back in shipping. Call us to see for yourself. 1-800-CALL DHL.”

Oh. So then what the ad is saying is, “Unlike FedEx and UPS, we provide customer service. Unlike those other two, when we say it's done, it's done.” And that's it. But why should any prospect believe it?

Presumably, the prospects are those responsible for choosing their company's shipping methods. Will “Consider it Done” catch their attention and make them want to know more?

Remember, “What you're really doing with your headline, then, is separating out the readers who would be interested in what you are selling from those who wouldn't.”

This kind of headline is curiously passive. It doesn't go anywhere or lead the reader anywhere. It's an attempt to condense a unique selling proposition (as Rosser Reeves would put it) into three words. But it fails even at that because FedEx and UPS are not famous for providing lousy service.

The ad neglects to address the average prospect's inner concerns and doubts: “Who are these guys DHL? Are they as good as FedEx and UPS? Why should I believe it? Are they better for overseas shipment? And how do I go about that?” Etc.

And most of all, it doesn't take advantage of the opportunity provided today by what I've decided to call hybrid advertising — which sells the Web site while it sells the brand, and doubles advertising's effect at virtually no increase in cost.

In preparing for my makeover I was stunned to discover that for three years in a row, DHL has beat FedEx and UPS in the annual “Great Package Race.” The race involves delivering to a challenging location overseas. Winning it doesn't prove that DHL also is better than the other two at domestic shipping, but it certainly goes a long way toward making that credible.

So, mindful of Ogilvy's advice, “When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar,” I made the race's outcome into a powerhouse headline. It “flags down readers who are prospects for the kind of product you are advertising” — in this case company personnel who want better delivery service than FedEx and UPS currently provides them.

The subhead cites the headline as proof of DHL's overall superiority. (I'm not certain this is 100% true. That's for the attorneys, and not a lowly maker of illustrative makeovers, to decide.)

Then the body copy starts by paying off the headline with the story, just as a good newspaper article does. It underscores the claim of superiority with a mention of 47 other awards the ad doesn't have room to list. It provides some encouragement and reassurance for prospects who are still a little inexperienced in overseas shipping. And it uses DHL's demonstrated superiority in global service to suggest this proves the carrier's domestic work is just as good.

In writing my makeover I assumed that the prime prospect has not yet used DHL or used it very much, and is inclined to stick to the old tried-and-true FedEx or UPS. So I needed to get him or her to do something now. If my ad merely settles for a favorable brand impression, will that linger long enough and be strong enough to prevail the next time a shipping need comes around?

So my copy strategy was to get the prospect to “march against Philip” — to log on to the Web site and get familiar with it. Then when the time comes, unfamiliarity with DHL won't be an issue.

To tempt the prospect into doing this, I included a long list of the site's attractive features. Then in the sign-off, I invented a slogan which goes nicely with the ad's theme: “Go With the Winner.”

Everybody likes to go with a winner, right? And in this case it's literally true.

THOMAS L. COLLINS (thomas.l.collins@verizon.net) has been a direct marketing copywriter, admaker, agency creative director and co-author of four books on marketing. He is currently an independent creative and marketing consultant based in Portland, OR.

Find more Makeover Maven columns at http://directmag.com/opinions-columnists/makeovermaven/.