Ogilvy on Advertising

In 1949, a young man arrived at Madison Avenue from UK with big dreams and aspirations. Through diligence and hard work, he became the messiah of advertising and turned Madison Avenue into the Mecca of advertising. This young man was David Ogilvy, whose name became synonymous with advertising, and who was rightly dubbed as the The Father of Advertising, and who replaced Crowther from Mather and Crowther to head Ogilvy and Mather, one of the biggest advertising agencies inth world.

The book Ogilvy on Advertising follows his bestseller, Confessions of an Advertising Man, which has become the bible for all those wanting to get into the glamorous world of advertising. But the cocky and braggart Ogilvy doesn’t deceive you into believing that advertising is good dosh and glamour; instead, this pundit talks about the long hours spent on research to write copy for an advertisement along with other principles (call it trade secrets if you may) that paved his success in the world of advertising.

A former chef and salesman, he redefined print advertising and promoted direct-mail order. A man of principles, he believed in living in the products before penning for it. A staunch believer that the success of an advert depends on the sales of a product.

Some of his most famous adverts include Rolls Royce (the famous line, At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock), Dove (Only Dove is one-quarter cleansing cream), Shell (it was an unknown brand until Ogilvy promoted this brand with astounding findings), Sears (again unknown and less sought-after until he penned the famous ads), Hathaway Shirts (introducing the famous one-eyed man), Schweppes (introducing Commander Whitehead) among others. Some of them have enjoyed a span of over three decades.

This 200-plus pages bestseller (published in 1985) is illustrated with innumerable adverts from across the world. He talks about writing copies for adverts in various genre. One chapter is dedicated to the other big gurus of advertising followed by the last chapter I Predict 13 Changes. Sadly at least nine of them are already archaic.

It is sad to note that the man who gave print advertising a new lease on life will go into oblivion as print is slowly dying with marketing foraying into televisions, radios, Net and other media. He was an old-fashioned man who believed that it was wrong to use celebrities to endorse a product as people tend to remember the celebrities more often than the ad following the debacle of a margarine product that he got Mrs Roosevelt to endorse. A man whose ideas grew extinct as he did not keep up with the pace of the ever-changing and ever-evolving world of media and technologies! But despite all this, Ogilvy will always be remembered for his contributions and his special (and key) role in advertising and marketing.