David MacKenzie Ogilvy, CBE (June 23, 1911–July 21, 1999), was a notable advertising executive. He has often been called “The Father of Advertising.” In 1962, Time called him “the most sought-after wizard in today's advertising industry." He was known for a career of expanding the bounds of both creativity and morality.
David Mackenzie Ogilvy was born on June 23, 1911 at West Horsley, Surrey in England. His father was a Gaelic-speaking highlander from Scotland who was a classics scholar and financial broker. His mother was a beautiful and eccentric Irishwoman. At the age of 13 Ogilvy attended Fettes College, in Edinburgh, which was founded by Sir William Fettes (his great-uncle Lord Justice General Inglis, a notable Scottish advocate may have played a role later on). He won a scholarship in history to Christ Church, Oxford six years later in 1929. Without the scholarship he would have been unable to attend university because his father's business was badly hit by the depression of the mid-twenties. In the event, his studies were unsuccessful and he left Oxford for Paris in 1931 without graduating. He became an apprentice chef in the Majestic Hotel. After a year in Paris he returned to Scotland and started selling Aga cooking stoves door-to-door. His success at this marked him out to his employer, who asked him to write an instruction manual, The Theory and Practice of Selling the AGA cooker, for the other salesmen. Thirty years later this manual was still read by Fortune magazine editors. They called it the finest sales instruction manual ever written. His older brother Francis Ogilvy, who was working for the London advertising agency Mather & Crowther, showed this manual to the agency management, who offered Ogilvy a position as an account executive. In 1938 he persuaded the agency to send him to the United States for a year.
Just after his few months in advertising Ogilvy did something that changed advertising forever. A man walked into Ogilvy's London agency wanting to advertise the opening of his hotel. Since he just had $500 he was turned to the novice - Ogilvy. Young Ogilvy bought $500 worth of postcards and sent an invite to everybody he found in the local telephone directory. The hotel opened with a full house. "I had tasted blood", says Ogilvy in his Confessions. This is also where he came to know Direct Advertising, his "Secret Weapon" as he says in "Ogilvy on Advertising".
In 1938, Ogilvy emigrated to the United States, where he went to work for George Gallup's Audience Research Institute in New Jersey. Ogilvy cites Gallup as one of the major influences on his thinking, emphasizing meticulous research methods and adherence to reality.
During World War II, Ogilvy worked with the Intelligence Service at the British Embassy in Washington. There he wrote enormously, analyzing and making recommendations on matters of diplomacy and security. He extrapolated his knowledge of human behavior from consumerism to nationalism in a report which suggested "applying the Gallup technique to fields of secret intelligence." Eisenhower’s Psychological Warfare Board picked up the report and successfully put Ogilvy’s suggestions to work in Europe during the last year of the war.
After the war, Ogilvy bought a farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and lived among the Amish. The atmosphere of "serenity, abundance, and contentment" kept Ogilvy and his wife in Pennsylvania for several years, but eventually he admitted his limitations as a farmer and moved to New York.
After working as a chef, researcher and farmer Ogilvy started his agency with the backing of two London agencies: S. H. Benson and Mather and Crowther, which was at that time being run by his elder brother Francis. The agency was called Ogilvy, Benson and Mather. Ogilvy had just $6000 in his account when he started the agency. He writes in his book Confessions of an Advertising Man that initially he had to struggle to get clients.
Ogilvy & Mather was built on David Ogilvy's principles: in particular, that the function of advertising is to sell, and that successful advertising for any product is based on information about its consumer.
But his belief was strong. He made best of whatever came his way. His entry into the company of giants started with several (to use the phrase du jour) iconic campaigns.
“The man from Schweppes is here” introduced Commander Whitehead, the elegant bearded Brit, bringing Schweppes (and “Schweppervesence”) to the U.S.
Perhaps the most famous headline in the car business – “At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock”.
“Pablo Casals is coming home – to Puerto Rico”. Ogilvy said this campaign, which helped change the image of a country, was his proudest achievement.
Perhaps his greatest sales success (for which he is less recognized) – “Only Dove is one-quarter moisturizing cream”. With this positioning, still being used 50 years later, Dove now outsells every soap in the U.S. and around the world.
He believed that the best way to get new clients is to do great work for existing clients. And he was right. Success of his early campaigns helped him to get big clients like Rolls-Royce and Shell. He created an avalanche of new clients. Ogilvy & Mather was an instant success.
In 1973 Ogilvy retired as Chairman of Ogilvy & Mather and moved to Touffou, his estate in France. While no longer involved in day-to-day operations of the agency, he stayed in touch with the company. Indeed, his correspondence so dramatically increased the volume of mail handled in the nearby town of Bonnes that the post office was reclassified at a higher status and the postmaster's salary raised.
Ogilvy came out of retirement in the 1980s to serve as chairman of Ogilvy, Benson & Mather in India. He also spent a year acting as temporary chairman of the agency’s German office, commuting daily between Touffou and Frankfurt. He visited branches of the company around the world, and continued to represent Ogilvy & Mather at gatherings of clients and business audiences.
In 1989 The Ogilvy Group was bought by WPP Group, a British holding company, for US$864 million. Two events occurred simultaneously: WPP became the largest marketing communications firm in the world, and David Ogilvy was named the company's non-executive chairman (a position he held for three years).
At age 75, Ogilvy was asked if anything he'd always wanted had somehow eluded him. His reply, "Knighthood. And a big family – ten children." (His only child, David Fairfield Ogilvy, was born during his first marriage, to Melinda Street. That marriage ended in divorce (1955) as did a second marriage to Anne Cabot. Ogilvy married Herta Lans in France in 1973.)
He didn’t achieve knighthood, but he was made a Commander of the Order of British Empire (CBE) in 1967. He was elected to the US Advertising Hall of Fame in 1977 and to France's "Order of Arts and Letters" in 1990. He chaired the Public Participation Committee for Lincoln Center. He was appointed Chairman of the United Negro College Fund in 1968, and trustee on the Executive Council of the World Wildlife Fund in 1975.
David Ogilvy died on July 21, 1999 at his home in Touffou, France. Ogilvy remains one of the most famous names in advertising and one of the handful of thinkers (Raymond Rubicam, Leo Burnett, William Bernbach, Ted Bates) who shaped the business after the 1920s..
His book Ogilvy on Advertising is a commentary on advertising, and not all the ads shown in the book are his. In early 2004, Adweek magazine asked people in the business “Which individuals—alive or dead—made you consider pursuing a career in advertising?” Ogilvy topped the list. And the same result came when students of advertising were surveyed. His best-selling book Confessions of an Advertising Man is one of the most popular and famous books on advertising.
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