The Unpublished David Ogilvy

by David Ogilvy

  Clearing the orchard on the farm in Pennsylvania in 1947.

  Continue: Do you know so-and-so, who has just put in an Aga? Go on mentioning all the satisfied owners in the district until you find someone whose name is familiar to the prospect.

  3. COMPETITORS. Try and avoid being drawn into discussing competitive makes of cooker, as it introduces a negative and defensive atmosphere. On no account sling mud – it can carry very little weight, coming from you, and it will make the prospect distrust your integrity and dislike you.

  The best way to tackle the problem is to find out all you possibly can about the merits, faults and sales arguments of competitors, and then keep quiet about them. Profound knowledge of other cookers will help you put your positive case for Aga more convincingly …

  * * *

  ECCENTRICITIES

  When Ken Brady became the head of Ogilvy & Mather in Jakarta at twenty-nine, he received a note from David saying, “You’re a remarkable young man. Please come to New York so I can shake your hand.”

  In due course Ken turned up in David’s office, where he received this advice:

  “Develop your eccentricities while you’re young. That way, when you get old, people won’t think you’re going gaga.”

  * * *

  4. PRICE DEFENCE. It pays to approach this subject off your own bat and in your own time … But sooner or later a prospect will ask you the price before you are ready. The way to reply is the supreme test of your salesmanship. Your voice, your manner, your expression, even your smell, must be controlled and directed to soften the blow …

  The way you continue the conversation after announcing the price is of great importance. It is no use fatuously remarking that it is “not really expensive.” You must be specific, definite and factual. The prospect is not interested in your personal opinion as to what is or is not expensive for her.

  The following suggestions will give you an indication of the kind of way to cope with the reactions of different prospects to the price announcement:–

  “It is too much money for me.”

  A famous surgeon was once asked by a friend how much he had charged a very poor patient for removing his appendix. “A hundred pounds,” the surgeon replied. “But how much had he?” asked his friend. “A hundred pounds,” replied the surgeon. Most Aga prospects have got £47 10s. If you can’t get it someone else will.

  “The price will come down.”

  If you wait a year, and even if the price did come down (which it won’t), you will still be out of pocket by another year’s fuel consumption.

  Continue: The Aga will never be mass-produced; like a Rolls-Royce it is too good for mass production. If you could buy a Rolls which was so economical in fuel that it did 2,000 miles to a gallon of petrol, what would you be willing to pay for such a car? The analogy is a close one.

  “We are getting old. It would not pay us.”

  Old cooks and housewives need an Aga more than young ones. And don’t forget that the Aga increases expectation of life.

  People come to live life more and more in the house as they grow old. A house which is smoothly run means everything to old people, and food comes to play an increasingly important part in their lives as death approaches. And what an heirloom!

  Continue: The Aga promotes digestion …

  In 1945 David developed a “Plan for a Company of Merchant Adventurers to Engage in the Export & Import Business Between the United Kingdom and the Western Hemisphere.” Here is one section:

  March 25, 1945

  A British Advertising Agency in the Western Hemisphere

  No British advertising agency has a branch anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. The export drive would be strengthened if a British agency opened offices in New York, Rio, Buenos Aires.

  The largest advertising agency in London is the branch of an American agency. Before the war their turnover was approximately £2,000,000 per annum. There were at least six other American agencies in London. They helped to launch on the British market such American products as PEPSODENT, WRIGLEY’S, LISTERINE, QUAKER OATS, POND’S, ESSO, PALMOLIVE. They can claim part of the credit for the fact that the visible balance of trade was $400,000,000 in America’s favor.

  But there was no British advertising agency in the U.S. No British agency had the enterprise to emulate the example of its American competitors.

  It is proposed that we should consider participating in the establishment of a British advertising agency in New York, Rio and Buenos Aires. The most convenient procedure would be to tie up with one of the existing London agencies: Mather & Crowther.

  Our agency would have three main functions:

  (1) To advertise the products imported by our trading subsidiaries.

  (2) To offer local advertisers and agencies consultative advice on the British market. Fee basis. Help local agencies with British copy angles.

  (3) To place American advertising in America, i.e., to become a full-fledged American agency. It would be possible at the start to hire one or two men who could bring with them enough American business to take care of a considerable part of our overhead.

  Reflecting on this in 1986, David said that “the Company of Merchant Adventurers came into being and prospered, but it did not start the advertising agency, so I resigned and started it myself.”

  At work in the early 1950s.

  Notes, Memos, and Letters

  Notes, Memos, and Letters

  An autobiographical note to Bill Phillips:

  March 5, 1971

  Will Any Agency Hire This Man?

  He is 38, and unemployed. He dropped out of college. He has been a cook, a salesman, a diplomatist and a farmer. He knows nothing about marketing, and has never written any copy. He professes to be interested in advertising as a career (at the age of 38!) and is ready to go to work for $5,000 a year.

  I doubt if any American agency will hire him.

  However, a London agency did hire him. Three years later he became the most famous copywriter in the world, and in due course built the tenth biggest agency in the world.

  The moral: it sometimes pays an agency to be imaginative and unorthodox in hiring.

  D.O.

  From a memo to the Board:

  December 8, 1971

  Gentlemen – With Brains

  In Principles of Management I said, “One of the most priceless assets Ogilvy & Mather can have is the respect of our clients and the whole business community.”

  With every passing year, I am increasingly impressed with the truth of this.

  It is not enough for an agency to be respected for its professional competence. Indeed, there isn’t much to choose between the competence of the big agencies.

  What so often makes the difference is the character of the men and women who represent the agency at the top level, with clients and the business community.

  If they are respected as admirable people, the agency gets business – whether from present clients or prospective ones. (I am coming to think that it also counts with the investment community.)

  … John Loudon recently told me, “In choosing men to head countries for Shell, I have always thought that character is the most important thing of all.”

  Ogilvy & Mather must have “gentlemen with brains” – not only in London and New York, but in all our countries.

  To compromise with this principle sometimes looks expedient, short term. But it can never do Ogilvy & Mather any permanent good.

  D.O.

  P.S. By “gentlemen” I do not, of course, mean Old Etonians and all that.

  A note to heads of offices:

  January 4, 1980

  Year after year, I see the creative output of every office. Year after year, I also see their profits.

  My conclusion: “The better the advertising, the more profitable the office. The worse the advertising, the more money the office loses.”

  David Ogilvy

  A memo that struck terror into the hearts of the agency’
s eleven copywriters, written when David decided, on the departure of Jud Irish, to become Copy Chief himself:

  August 15, 1959

  In my new role as Copy Chief, it will be necessary for me to know more about the talents of our copywriters than I now know.

  Will you please let me see – in proof or layout form – the six best advertisements (print or broadcast) that you have produced since joining Ogilvy, Benson & Mather, and the three best that you had produced in your previous incarnations – if any.

  I would like to have these on my desk before tomorrow evening.

  David Ogilvy

  A reference letter for Dave McCall, a former Copy Chief of Ogilvy, Benson & Mather:

  February 28, 1964

  Dear Mr. Weis:

  Mr. McCall is an old friend of mine. He joined our company twelve years ago. When he resigned he was a Director and Senior Vice-President.

  He and his family are splendid in every way – in spite of the fact that he is white, a Republican and a Christian.

  Yours truly,

  D.O.

  A letter to the New Hampshire Vacation Center:

  April 12, 1971

  Gentlemen:

  “America is alive and well and living in New Hampshire.” This is one of the best headlines I have ever read.

  I offer humble congratulations to the man or woman who wrote it.

  Yours sincerely,

  D.O.

  To Cliff Field, a great copywriter, on his seventh anniversary with the company:

  September 21, 1963

  Cliff:

  I see that you have been here for seven years. I’ve been here for twice as long. God knows what this proves.

  D.O.

  From a letter to Geoff Lindley, later head of Ogilvy & Mather in Sydney, when Geoff was in New Zealand:

  Dear Geoff,

  Your Status Reports always make good reading, for a lot of reasons. The one dated April 22nd is no exception.

  I love the fact that we are to advertise “a silent flushing system.” Your copywriter may be able to do something with the fact that Queen Victoria bestowed a knighthood on a man who had advanced the art of flushing. His name was Sir Thomas Crapper.

  I also enjoy reading about “the wig sell-in.” What an extraordinary business we are in …

  A memo to the Board:

  October 11, 1978

  A Teaching Hospital

  I have a new metaphor.

  Great hospitals do two things: They look after patients, and they teach young doctors.

  Ogilvy & Mather does two things: We look after clients, and we teach young advertising people.

  Ogilvy & Mather is the teaching hospital of the advertising world. And, as such, to be respected above all other agencies.

  I prefer this to Stanley Resor’s old saying that J. Walter Thompson was a “university of advertising.”

  D.O.

  A note to Cliff Field who at the time was Creative Head of the agency:

  June 11, 1965

  Cliff:

  __________ thinks that this is a great advertisement. I don’t. It lacks charm.

  It plods. Heavy as lead. The models – most of them – look like automobile dealers from South Dakota. Not the way to capture the affections of the people who read The New Yorker.

  I plead for charm, flair, showmanship, taste, distinction.

  D.O.

  A memo to the New York office’s seven “Syndicate Heads,” as David dubbed the leaders of his creative groups:

  April 29, 1971

  A Word to the Wise

  Long ago I realized that I lack competence, or interest, or both, in several areas of our business. Notably television programming, finance, administration, commercial production and marketing.

  So I hired people who are strong in those areas where I am weak.

  Every one of you Syndicate Heads is strong in some areas, weak in others. Take my advice: get people alongside you who make up for your weaknesses.

  If you are strong in production and weak in strategy, have a strategist as your right arm.

  If you are strong on strategy and weak in production, have a production genius as your right arm.

  If your taste is uncertain – or nonexistent – have someone at your right hand whose taste is impeccable.

  If you are a print writer and inept in television, get someone beside you who is the reverse. (Some of you are good at TV but haven’t a clue about print.)

  If you are weak in package goods, have someone at your right hand who is strong in this area.

  Don’t compound your own weaknesses by employing people in key positions who have the same weakness.

  Who wants to admit, even to himself, that he has no taste, or is bored by television production, or inadequate on strategy?

  Ah, that is the question.

  One of the recipients of this memo responded by asking David’s advice on what sort of people he should hire. Here are excerpts from a long, handwritten reply:

  June 9, 1971

  Dear __________

  You are the only one of the Syndicate Heads who has asked me this question. Which says a lot about you …

  It would be easier for me to answer the question specifically for certain other Syndicate Heads:

  A has terrible taste, so should get someone who has good taste

  B is a mere execution man – he should get a strategist

  C is blind to graphics and so are his art directors

  D ditto

  E is a shit and should hire an angel

  I am making a speech next week to the grand American Chamber of Commerce in London. I’m so nervous that I’m having nightmares about it.

  Yours,

  David

  A trait that sometimes surprised newcomers to the Agency was the attention David directed to the smallest details of people’s jobs, as in this memo to account supervisors and account executives:

  May 8, 1958

  How to Be Helpful at Meetings

  Every week we have several meetings – with clients, and among ourselves. Most of the talking at these meetings is apt to be done by the most senior people present. This sometimes leaves the junior people with nothing to do except listen.

  Anyway, that seems to be the general idea. But it is wrong. First of all, junior people should not hesitate to speak out. For example, if they disagree with something I am saying, they should say so – before it is too late. Very often, I lack information which is available to them.

  But the main purpose of this memo is to say that the most junior agency representative present at any meeting should make himself useful by “servicing” the meeting.

  For example, if we start discussing an old advertisement, he should leave the room and return with the advertisement. Then we would have it before us and could discuss it more sensibly.

  If at some point in the meeting it becomes apparent that we would make more progress if we had the art director or one of the media experts present, the junior man should leave the meeting and return with the person concerned.

  All too often I see our junior people sitting on their fannies, not reacting to the stimuli which arise …

  Above all, it is true to say that the success of a meeting often depends on having the right documents – proofs, artwork, schedules, research charts, etc. – present at the start of the meeting. All too often we arrive like plumbers, leaving our tools behind.

  D.O.

  A memo to the staff, sent out every eighteen months or so during the early years of the company:

  March 22, 1957

  The paper clip is a very dangerous little instrument. When it is used to fasten papers together, it frequently picks up a paper which doesn’t belong. And it frequently drops a paper which does belong.

  All offices, including this one, have lost very valuable papers because of these wretched little clips.

  In circulating papers around our offices here, please use these clips as little as possible. It is much s
afer and more efficient to use a stapler; or, if papers are too bulky for a stapler, use the binder clips.

  A handwritten note to Joel Raphaelson, undated, but probably during 1964:

  Joel:

  I thought you promised to show me the Sears ads (with copy) last Tuesday.

  It is now three months since Struthers picked them. Longer than the period of gestation in PIGS.

  D.O.

  A letter to Ray Taylor, a former Ogilvy & Mather copywriter, on his retirement, from another agency:

  June 29, 1983

  Dear Ray:

  Nineteen years ago you wrote me the best job application letter I have ever received. I can still recite the first paragraph.*

  For the next three years you were one of the best copywriters ever employed in our New York office.

  I was miserable when you returned to London, and still more miserable when you joined another agency.

  But I cannot grudge Masius their good fortune in recruiting you, because it was Mike Masius who got me my first job in the United States.

  Now I hear that you are retiring. What a waste of genius.

  May your shadow never grow less.

  Yours affectionately,

  David Ogilvy

  A letter to Peter Warren, Chairman of Ogilvy & Mather in the United Kingdom:

  May 15, 1983

  Dear Peter,

  It was very good of you to send me Lord Denning’s book. I finished reading it last night.

  What a curious way of writing. I have often been accused of writing too staccato, but compared with Denning, I am positively long-winded.

  A draper begot a General, an Admiral and a Judge. I know of a similar case. A poor coal merchant in Invernesshire, who carried his coal into his customers’ houses on his back, begot a General, a Judge and a Cabinet Minister.