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Enter David Ogilvy
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He was walking down the street one morning when he encountered a blind homeless man begging. e sign read: I �� �����, ������ ���� ����.. His donation cup was empty. Ogilvy paused and rather than putting some money in the man’s cup, he took the man’s sign and rewrote it.
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When he lef his office later in the day, the homeless man’s cup was overflowing with money mone y. So what had Ogilvy written on the man’s sign? e homeless man’s sign now read: I� �� ������, ��� I �� �����
The Birth of a Legend “Develop your eccentricities while you are young. That way, when you get old, people won’t think you’re going gaga.”
H
e may be one o the most charismatic, exuberant and flamboyant copywriter ever to grace the crazy world o advertising. He would even go so ar as to wear a kilt to dinner parties just or the sake o attracting attention. Time magazine called him “the most sought afer wizard in today’s advertising agency.”
H� �� D���� O�����. David Mackenzie Ogilvy was born on the 23rd o June, 1911 at Surrey, about thirty miles southwest o London. A rather unusual eat o nature, as he was born on the same day as his ather and grandather. His mother, Dorothy Blair Fairfield was hal Irish, while his ather, Francis John Langley Ogilvy was a pure Scottish. He always prided himsel as a Scot. Like Winston Churchill, omas Edison and Albert Alb ert Einstein, Ogilvy’s Og ilvy’s younger younger days in St. Cyprian’s Cyprian’s School and Fettes wasn’t wasn’t much o a success. success . ough he did show little signs o being remarkable. It wasn’t until afer his ormal education was over only did Ogilvy’s true education began.
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David Ogilvy’s True Education “The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife.”
W
hen he lef Oxord in 1931 (he called it the biggest ailure o his lie), Britain was still reeling rom the repercussions o the Great Depression. Despite the act that unemployment skyrocketed, he decided that he wanted to have a lie with artisans, and ound a job as a cook. e restaurant by Hotel Majestic was then the very best in Paris. Introduced Introduced by his ather, Ogilvy started working there. He started rom the very bottom – preparing meals or the customer’s dogs – and slowly climbed up the ranks. He was moved up to whisking egg whites or the che pâtissier, then to preparing hors d’ oeuvres. As with the other ches in the kitchen, he was under the meticulous supervision o the earsome head che Monsieur Pitard. Ogilvy was terrified o him, Monsieur Pitard would fire anyone who made any mistake right on the spot. But he did win the horriying martinet’s approval when he ound a way to please one o his patrons, Mrs Gordon, who loved baked apples. He had developed a technique in which he baked to apples together, scraped out everything and put the insides o both apples into a single shell.
Mrs Gordon absolutely loved it, and wanted him and only him to bake the apples or her. Monsieur Pitard had no choice but to oblige. He was so good in the kitchen that the head che reused to let him go. He triumphed when the President o France visited the restaurant. He told the story o how he decorated the thighs o cold rogs with chervil leaves an immensurable immensurab le number o times. As he decorated the rogs, he became aware that Pitard was behind him, watching intently. Afer five minutes o nerve-wrecking silence Pitard motioned the entire brigade to gather round. He continued nervously, thinking that the head che was going to fire him in ront o an audience. e brigade gathered round, and Pitard pointed to his rog legs. “at is the way to do it.” the head che said, and proud welled up in him, even afer he lef Paris. Reusing to cope with another ew years o slave wages, fiendish pressure and perpetual exhaustion, Ogilvy travelled back to Britain afer accepting a job offer to sell Aga cooking co oking stoves.
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He thought the Aga cooker was remarkable. It was invented in 1922 by Nobel Prize winning Swedish Physicist Gusta Dalén. It gained acceptance and even affection with the British public, even with the t he Royal Family. Family. Ogilvy was good at selling the Aga, he even sold it to a colonel and a Roman Catholic archbishop, who would later help him sell the Aga to nuns in Scotland. e company (not knowing he had help rom the archbishop) asked him to write wr ite a guide or his ellow salesmen. “e eory and Practice o Selling the Aga Cooker” was published in 1935, and became the company’s sales bible. e 32-page booklet contained advice that could be applied to selling any product. 30 years later, Fortune magazine dubbed it ‘the best sales manual ever written.’
When he was an Aga cooker salesman, he had roughly calculated that it took hal an hour to properly describe the Aga cooker. cooker. at lesson had transcended into the power o a ‘long copy’ – an advertisement with a long text. e experience also had lef him with a distaste or flashy advertising that were usually aimed or winning awards. He believed that had no clear relevance to a client’s product or service. Instead, he relied on sales to measure ‘good’ advertising; a notion that is still very much in use today. Again, no evidence suggested that he was fired, but it was obvious he would never be a salesman orever.
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Riding on the prosperous boom o the Industrial Revolution, Mather and Crowther was one o the ew pioneering advertising agencies in Britain. Ogilvy joined them in 1935 as a trainee. e agency was run by his brother, Francis. It was in that agency he had his first taste o advertising, although it would take another thirteen years beore he was truly immersed in the world o advertising. Ogilvy went to America in 1938, afer convincing the agency to send him there. He wanted adventure. Afer dabbling in New York, he caught the luckiest break o his lie: an invitation to join Dr. George
Gallup. Dr. Gallup was an American pioneer o survey sampling techniques and inventor o the Gallup poll, a successul statistical method o survey sampling or measuring public opinion. He and Gallup wanted to measure the popularity o movie stars and pretest stories and titles beore they were released. ey made their first sale to Radio-Keith-Orpheus (RKO), one o the Big Five studios o Hollywood’s Golden Age. ey set about measuring the popularity movie stars in terms o their power to sell tickets and ound out some o them even had a negative effect on the box office. ey pretested titles or films and even predicted how many people would watch the film beore it was even made.
It was with Gallup did he truly valued the importance and potency o research. Ogilvy was converted to a believer o research. His time in Tinseltown was well spent, then along came the war.
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On Her Majesty’s Secret Service “Leaders gr g rasp nettles.” ne ttles.”
1942
, war ravaged Europe; France ell, its neighbours in shambles. Hitler’s regime seemed unstoppable, hope only laid with the hands o America’s intervention. Ogilvy was then enlisted to Sir William Stephenson’s task orce. Sir William Stephenson was considered to be one o the inspirations o James Bond, the dashing British spy in the world o film. Even Ian Fleming himsel wrote “James Bond is a highly romanticized version o a true spy. e real thing is … William Stephenson.” (Preace to Room 3603 by H. Montgomery Hyde.)
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He attended a course at a topsecret British training traini ng school near Lake Ontario in Canada. He learnt the tricks o the trade; ollowing people without being observed, blowing up bridges, killing a man with his bare hands. His rail health condition prevented him rom being parachuted behind enemy lines, but he did assist in oiling businessmen that were working wor king against agai nst the Allies. 1944, the war was dying down and he resigned rom the British Embassy. Like so many others, he had no clue what’s next or him. He only remembered a place in America that he once saw on a train to Chicago: Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It was an Amish community, and he would spend the next several years o sabbatical sabbatical there.
A Fa r m hous house e i n L a nc ncaa st ster er “...the Amish are remarkably remarkably tolerant people whose churches allow allow them to lead a more worldly lives.”
H
e didn’t exactly become a armer, citing exhaustive labour and the lack o knowledge in animal husbandry as his reasons. But he was somewhat a figure o intrigue in the community, touring around with his Model A Ford. He wore a kilt to riend’s dinner party in a armhouse. Yes, the outrageous David Ogilvy was a total contrast to the understated Amish community.
Ogilvy thoroughly enjoyed his time in Lancaster. But his interest in arming dwindled, advertising once again claimed his enthusiasm. He laboriously studied it night afer night, devouring anything he could find rom the local library. Remembering his grandather ailed as a armer as well but became a successul businessman, he decided to start an advertising agency. He was 38 then.
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The Creation of a Powerhouse “Only first class business, and that in a first class way.”
T
he idea o starting an advertising agency in America had already taken root ten years ago, afer his first oray. Afer doing some research on the easibility on the notion, he convinced his London backers Mather and Crowther to support him. Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson & Mather opened in 1948 at 345 Madison Avenue. When Ogilvy started out, he was competing with the other established giants right next door; it was truly David versus the Goliaths. e odds were stacked against them, but he put up a brave ront.
Ogilvy had a roster o five clients he wanted most: Shell, Lever Brothers, Campbell Soup, General Food and Bristol-Myers. He talked about them ofen, eventually bagging all five them. He had quite an illustrious and respectable list o clients during his career in Ogilvy and Mather; among them were Guinness, British Travel Association, Puerto Rico, Rolls Royce, KLM Airlines, IBM, Merrill Lynch, Hershey, Avon, and many, many more. en Ogilvy and Mather had a slew o successul campaigns, drawing the attentions o the biggest advertisers in America. Ogilvy called them his ‘Big Ideas’. e agency then became a powerhouse, producing campaigns that would later go down in history o advertising as rare marvels. His adherence to high standards were awe-inspiring. His business etiquette was immaculate, respect were mutual between him and his clients. He didn’t really care about profits; he didn’t care about other agencies rantically expanding.
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David Ogilvy didn’t want his agency to be the biggest, he only wanted it to be the best .
By the late 1950s, Ogilvy had already come up with most o his ‘Big Ideas’. e agency he built rom the ground up had ulfilled its objectives o being the best agency by 1960. In 1965 he merged the agency with Mather and Crowther, orming an international agency, a year later it went public – one o the first ew advertising firms to do so. Operating 450 offices in 169 cities, Ogilvy & Mather is currently a worldwide advertising agency that spans 120 countries, with a staff o 18,000.
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A Short Retirement
W
hen the company went global, it was time or Ogilvy to let go. He was reluctant, relu ctant, but the t he company was expanding overseas and his hi s ear o flight flig ht proved to be a major inconvenience. So he resigned in 1973, and moved to Château de Touffou in France. Even though he had relinquished the reigns o controlling the t he agency, agency, he still wanted to play a role in Ogilvy and Mather. So he bombarded the agency with countless memos. It was so much that the post office o the nearby town, Bonnes, was reclassified at a higher status, raising the postmaster’s salary. In the 1980’ 1980’s, s, Ogilv Ogilvyy came out o his brie retiremen retirementt and wen wentt to serve as the chairman o Ogilvy and Mather in India. He also acted as temporary chairman o the agency’s German office in Frankurt or a year. e company was embr embroiled oiled in a hostile takeover by WPP WPP,, a British a holding company company.. He was fiercely fiercely against it, calling ca lling the t he head o WPP WPP, Martin Mart in Sorrell, an odious od ious little shit’. But he did came around a round it, and accepted the token position o o non-ex non-executive ecutive chairman or three years.
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The End of a Legend Don’t Don ’t bunt. Aim out out of the ball park park.. Aim for for the the company company of immort immortals als..
D
avid Ogilvy passed away on 21st July 1999 in Château de Touou, his inal residence in France. He was 88. He let behind quite a ew o legacies: his beloved agency Ogilvy and Mather, the only international agency that started since World War II and still exists today; he pioneered the concept o brands and branding, and using research in advertisemen advertisements ts and campaigns. To thi thiss day he remains one o the most prominent igures in advertising, immortalised alongside other other greats such as Raymond Rubi Rubicam, cam, Leo Burnett, Willia William m Bernbach Bernbach and Rosser Reeves. His unorgettabl unorgettablee admonitio admonitions ns and epigrams will orever be engraved in the hearts o copywriters both the presentt and uture. presen
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Advertising Marvels by David Ogilvy
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R��������� 1. Roman K. (2010) T he he King of Madison Avenue New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 2. Ogilvy D. (1997) An (1997) An Autob Autobiograph iography y 2nd 2nd Ed. New York: Wiley. 3. Ogilvy D. (2004) Confessions of an Advertising Man 3rd Ed. London: Southbank. 4. Ogilvy D. () Te Unplublished David Ogilvy 2nd Ed. London : Profile. 5. Iezzi T. (2010) Te Idea Writers: Copywriting in a New Media and Marketing Era New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 6. Montgomery Hyde H. Room 3603 Preface e Lyons Press 7. ADWEEK MAGAZINE (2011) David Ogilvy & Me [Online] Available rom: http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/david-ogilvy-me-132492?page=1 [Accessed 12th August 2013] 8. THE FAMOUS PEOPLE David Ogilvy Biography [Online] Available rom: http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/david-ogilvy-184.php [Acessed 17th August 2013]
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When Adweek magazine asked people in the business the following question in 2004: “WHICH -
INDIVIDUAL
ALIVE OR DEAD -
MADE YOU CONSIDER PURSUING A CAREER IN ADVERTISING?”
David Ogilvy topped the list.
When the question was used with the students students of adv advertisin ertising. g..... David Ogilvy topped the list, again .
Adweek Adwe ek Magazine Magazine 2004 2004
End.
