David Ogilvy It is an essential name in the advertising industry. He dedicated his life to creating effective advertising, based on the facts and results, capable of communicating to the general public. He was unique to know the audience and understand how to capture his attention. That is why the Father of modern advertising (Just as Philip Kotler is known as the father of modern marketing).

David Ogilvy’s life

David Ogilvy was born in England in 1911, of a Scottish father and Irish mother. He studied at the University of Oxford, but left his studies and moved to Paris, where he began to work on kitchen helper.

The very hard work in the kitchen of the Majestic hotel and the excellence that was demanded in the restaurant marked him for a lifetime.

After this experience, he returned to Scotland to work as hawker of furnaces. He was so good that he was commissioned to write a sales manual. It was thanks to this manual that they hired at the agency Mather & Crowtherhis first job as an advertising.

In 1938 he asked his agency to transfer him to the United States, where he worked in market research. After collaborating with the British Intelligence Service and retiring for a season to live among the Amish, Ogilvy decided to found his own advertising agency.

The agency, which was called in its beginnings “Ogilvy, Benson & Mather”, Was based on the principle that Effective advertising It is the one that gives information about the consumer product.

His business model was to do excellent job for customers they already had, instead of striving to get new accounts. It would be the clients themselves who would call the agency.

Great ogilvy lessons

The offices of Ogilvy & Mather Of all the world remind their founder through the great lessons he offered to the entire advertising sector. Agency employees have baptized them as “Ogilvysmos “. We had the privilege of meeting them during our visit to the offices of Ogilvy & Mather in Madrid.

It is surprising how these great lessons remain valid after so many years of changes in advertising. And it also clashes that the advertising sector seems that it has not yet assimilated them …

“Of every five people who read the holder, only one reads the full text. When you have written the headline you have spent 80 cents of each dollar.”

This Ogilvy phrase explains why it always defended the name of the brand in the headline (with very very exceptions).

You cannot allow 80% percent of people who see the ad never know what product it is.

Many publicists defend that the holder You have to intrigue, incite the reading of the full text. And it is true that this is one of its functions. But even the most intriguing holder in the world does not get everyone to read the text. That is why you have to take advantage of those seconds to make clear the productthe brand and its advantage. That is the power of the holder and the image.

“A good announcement sells the product without attracting attention to yourself”

The product must be the announcement star, not the model or music. It is useless that people remember the announcement, if they do not remember the product.

“Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving.”

David Ogilvy He is known for being one of the first to face the advertising profession with some logic, metrics and data. Was one of the first to use Focus Groups To test new products and advertising campaigns, and was always willing to adapt his work to the results.

“If you don’t sell, it’s not creative”

This is one of David Ogilvy’s most valuable lessons. Especially in the times, when advertising are more concerned with viral and win prizes than for selling the product.

“The consumer is not an idiot. The consumer is his wife, do not insult his intelligence.”

In front of an advertising sector obsessed with Jingles and the ads Without content, Ogilvy always defended the advertising based on facts.

I firmly believed that the best form of Sell ​​a product It was to inform the consumer about their advantages.

Ogilvy was convinced that many of his campaigns triumphed over the competition simply because he contributed data. Data that could be true for both products, but only he had the success of communicating them to customer potential.

Great Ogilvy campaigns

Ogilvy dedicated himself almost exclusively to Press advertisingalthough the agency’s staff campaigns for all means. He worked for the number of customers, producing hundreds of advertising pieces. Some of them have become part of the history of advertising.

The Hathaway shirt man

The owner of Hathaway shirts, Ellerton Jette, contacted Ogilvy for this campaign when he was already one of the most outstanding names in the sector. But for Ogilvy, Hathaway was a client too small and could not pay the agency’s rates. So Jette offered in return two succulent advantages for an advertising:

• Total control
• Stability

He assured him that the agency He would carry the whole creative process, from beginning to end, and that he would never venture a campaign or make the final decision. And, in addition, he promised that he would never fire the agency, while his company was still standing. Ogilvy accepted the treatment immediately.

The result was the man with the Hathaway shirt, one of the ads with more Storytelling of history. He eye patch It was a heart of Ogilvy in the photographic session. He asked the model to try it for a few shots. Then, reviewing the images, Ogilvy discovered that the patch was the special point he needed.

The text explained the story of this man, an eccentric aristocrat, traveling around the world in search of adventure. No need for Jette to approve them, the advertisement He took to print and caused a sensation. The Hathaway shirt became a icon For men and women. Even today he is remembered in campaigns like those of The Man of Old Spice.

Rolls Royce

“At 60 miles per hour, the biggest sound of this Rolls Royce is that of the electric clock”. Even today this is one of the famous phrases of the Automobile advertising.

David Ogilvy firmly believed what to offer data and product facts It was the way to win the trust of the client. This announcement was written with the editorial style of motor magazines. The technique is to speak to the reader in the middle and the way he already knows, as he is accustomed. The text is organized in a list list, which helps the reader not to miss anymore the entire content. It is almost a piece of Branded Content.

When Rolls Royce chief engineer read the announcement, he shook his head and said: “It’s time for us to fix that damn clock!”.

Dove

David Ogilvy is the head of the Dove’s success As a brand. Dove managers tried to compete in the soap market, a saturated sector where the price war dominated. It was Ogilvy who convinced them to focus on the differential advantage of their product: the Dove soap has a quarter of moisturizing cream.

Dove was, from then on, a unique product. In a year it became the leading brand of the sector. He did not have to go back into the fierce war for the price. And he built his whole Brand identity From this differential fact.

Puerto Rico

This is the campaign that Ogilvy is more proud of his entire advertising career. He managed to change the image of a country …

Other campaigns

Schweppes, IBM and American Express They were some of the lucky clients who worked with David Ogilvy. His agency had about 20 clients in the United States and did not spend much time looking for more.

In general, Ogilvy refused to present Campaigns to competitions. He believed that the best creatives had to devote themselves to service the clients that the agency already had. For Ogilvy, dedicate your time to work to impress Potential clients It was to waste your company’s resources.

He was also reluctant to take very large customers that his agency could do dependent on a single account.

He refused to take campaigns in which the advertiser He imposed him to hire a person and never signed with a new client if he wasn’t sure he could improve the campaign his previous agency had done.

In this aspect, Ogilvy thought that campaigns retired too soon. “Brands and agencies see ads many times more than audiences and get tired of them. It is better to maintain a good campaign than replace it with a lower one just because we have already seen the good campaign many times”.

Great works by Ogilvy

David Ogilvy died in 1999, at 88, at his home in Bonnes, France. The world will always remember how the man who changed the Advertising forever. And, luckily, he has left us part of his testimony and his knowledge in the form of books.

Confessions of an advertising

This is the Advertising Bible David Ogilvy’s autobiography disguised. In this book Ogilvy reviews the history of his life, in which lessons on advertising, businesses and personnel management intermingle.

It is an essential work for any advertising professional.

On advertising

The full advertising manual, written by Ogilvy. Who wants to squeeze more the wisdom of this advertising genius, needs this book. Of course, it is not translated into Spanish.

The unpublished ogilvy

To learn about David Ogilvy, you can take a look at his letters, his briefs, his notes and speeches in this collection of documents made by his family and friends. It includes an interview and the manual for home vendors that he wrote when he left his seller job in England.

Ogilvy today

The agency founded by David Ogilvy is still one of the most important in the world. Ogilvy has been creating impact for brands through iconic ideas for 75 years. It is based on that rich legacy through Borderless Creativityinnovating at the intersections of their advertising, public relations, relations of relations and consulting with professionals who make it possible through more than 120 offices in almost 90 countries.