One hundred and eight years ago today, David Ogilvy was born in West Horsley, a village in Surrey 28 miles southwest of London. In 1999, he passed away at his chateau in Bonnes France, just as digital marketing was starting to crawl with some confidence through its energetic infancy.
Ogilvy was more than an icon of 20th century advertising and a convenient representative of the Mad Men era. Ogilvy followed in the footsteps of advertising agency legends such as John Caples, James Webb Young, and Bruce Barton.
He brought substance, grace, and new levels of performance to a business often guided by charlatans mired in mediocrity. His work was nonstop proof that selling could be charming and respectful.
Ogilvy's principles and practices remain as relevant today as they were a half-century ago. Combing through his writings we’re left with an unparalleled primer on the business of marketing and advertising.
7 Timeless Thoughts From David Ogilvy
1. "Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon."
2. “The most important word in the vocabulary of advertising is TEST.”
3. "Committees can criticize advertisements, but they should never be allowed to create them."
4. “Every word in the copy must count. Concrete figures must be substituted for atmospheric claims; clichés must give way to facts, and empty exhortations to alluring offers.”
5. “Every advertisement must tell the whole sales story because the public does not read advertisements in series.”
6. “What I do is write my stuff and edit and edit and edit until it’s reasonably passable.”
7. “My ideas about what constitutes good copy, almost all of them, derive from research, not personal opinion.”
Why David Ogilvy Matters
Because of his love of testing, and the intelligent analysis of data, it’s not a stretch to believe that Ogilvy would have been an enthusiastic advocate and practitioner of today’s digital marketing.
I suspect he would be less enthusiastic about marketing people eating lunch at their desks, clients taking their business in-house, shrinking attention spans, and an increasingly shrill tone of language.
