Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy
Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy
Midnight oil, incompetent amateurs, shaking the pagoda tree
These notes were created during my reading process to aid in my own understanding and were not written for the purpose of instruction or summarization. With that said, I get super excited to discuss ideas contained within, but rarely (read never) do I encounter anyone reading the same stuff. I’ve decided to share these unedited notes on the off chance they attract a shared excitement to discuss or are perhaps helpful to other readers. Feel free to ask questions and interact. Enjoy!
Opinion
I read this because David Senra recently did another episode on David Ogilvy, and I was so excited by what Senra shared that I immediately had to read this book. I don’t think I learned any particular world-bending insights, but it was a fun read, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I wish I had come across this book as a student in design school. Would make a great gift to a young creative.
What I’m stealing
Use of maddening repetition
Seek the company of nonconformists, dissenters, and rebels
Allow one’s brain to “lie fallow” i.e. make space for boredom
Importance of vitality and resilience
Fear-based leadership creates lackeys
Beware the “Too many masters, too many objectives, too little money” when assessing new ventures
There is magic in striving for “exorbitant standards of service”
Lean into being an “inveterate brain picker”
Do the homework
Specialize in something
Remember to have gentle manners and treat other people as human beings
Dog ears, highlights, marginalia
He started his career as an apprentice chef in the kitchens of the Hotel Majestic in Paris. He went on from Paris to sell stoves in Scotland, and later emigrated to America to become Associate Director of Dr. George Gallup's Audience Research Institute at Princeton.
During the Second World War, Mr. Ogilvy was on Sir William Stephenson's staff in British Security Coordination. After the war, he founded the advertising agency known today as Ogilvy and Mather. (Page 5)
Note: FOUR "CAREERS" BEFORE Founding his own firm
As an Englishman interested in baseball, Ogilvy says: "Don't bunt. Aim out of the park. Aim for the company of immortals. (Page 11)
Note: Ogilvy took an interest in “America’s Past Time”. I suspect he thought this would lead to insights about being American. A way to connect with his clients and be less of an outsider/foreigner
Through maddening repetition, some of my obiter dicta have been woven into our culture. Here are some of them:
1 (1) “We sell – or else."
(2) “You cannot bore people into buying your product; you can only interest them in buying it.”
(3) "We prefer the discipline of knowledge to the anarchy of ignorance. We pursue knowledge the way a pig pursues truffles.
A blind pig can sometimes find truffles, but it helps to know that they grow in oak forests.
(4) "We hire gentlemen with brains.
(5) "The consumer is not a moron. She is your wife. Don't insult her intelligence."
(6) "Unless your campaign contains a Big Idea, it will pass like a ship in the night." (I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea. I am supposed to be one of the more fertile inventors of big ideas, but in my long career I have not had more than twenty.)
(7) "Only First Class business, and that in a First Class way."
(8) "Never run an advertisement you would not want your own family to see.
(9) "Search all the parks in all your cities; you'll find no statues of committees." (Page 18)
Pay peanuts and you get monkeys (Page 20)
“Ignorant amateurs” (Page 21)
Note: Avoid being an ignorant amateur at all costs. See page 159-160 for the recipe to go from ignorant amateur to competent pro.
These are the most valuable lessons I have learned:
(1) Creating successful advertising is a craft, part inspiration but mostly know-how and hard work. If you have a modicum 21 of talent, and know which techniques work at the cash register, you will go a long way.
(2) The temptation to entertain instead of selling is contagious.
(3) The difference between one advertisement and another, when measured in terms of sales, can be as much as nineteen to one.
(4) It pays to study the product before writing your advertisements.
(5) The key to success is to promise the consumer a benefit like better flavor, whiter wash, more miles per gallon, a better complexion.
(6) The function of most advertising is not to persuade people to try your product, but to persuade them to use it more often than other brands in their repertoire. (Thank you, Andrew Ehrenberg.)
(7) What works in one country almost always works in other countries.
(8) Editors of magazines are better communicators than advertising people. Copy their techniques.
(9) Most campaigns are too complicated. They reflect a long list of objectives, and try to reconcile the divergent views of too many executives. By attempting to cover too many things, they achieve nothing. Their advertisements look like the minutes of a committee.
(10) Don't let men write advertising for products which are bought by women.
(11) Good campaigns can run for many years without losing their selling power. My eyepatch campaign for Hathaway shirts ran for twenty-one years. My campaign for Dove soap has been running for thirty-one years, and Dove is now the best seller.
Once a salesman, always a salesman (Page 21)
I was a chef in Paris, a door-to-door salesman, a social worker in the Edinburgh slums, an associate of Dr. Gallup in research for the motion picture industry, an assistant to Sir William Stephenson in British Security Co-ordination, and a farmer in Pennsylvania (Page 26)
M. Pitard taught me exorbitant standards of service. (Page 31)
Note: Creating and maintaining a high standard of service is an invaluable lesson to learn early in one’s career. The hospitality industry is a great place to start a career and learn this. Also, see what can be dug up about M. Pitard
You set the pace on doing homework. It is a disconcerting experience to spend a Saturday evening in the garden next door to your house, carousing for four hours while you sit, unmoving, at your desk by the window doing your homework. The word gets around.") (Page 34)
Note: On picking up or setting the pace as a leader
high strung, brilliant, eccentric nonconformists. (Page 35)
Note: On what he looks for scouting and accumulating talent
If I tell all my staff what we are doing in the agency, what we believe in, what our ambitions are, they will tell their 49,700 friends. And this will give us 49,700 rooters for Ogilvy, Benson & Mather. (Page 36)
So once a year I assemble the whole brigade in the auditorium of the Museum of Modern Art, and give them a candid report on our operations, profits and all. Then I tell them what kind of behaviour I admire, in these terms:
1 (1) I admire people who work hard, who bite the bullet. I dislike passengers who don't pull their weight in the boat. It is more fun to be overworked than to be underworked.
There is an economic factor built into hard work. The harder you work, the fewer employees we need, and the more profit we make. The more profit we make, the more money becomes available for all of us.
(2) I admire people with first-class brains, because you cannot run a great advertising agency without brainy people. But brains are not enough unless they are combined with intellectual honesty.
(3) I have an inviolable rule against employing nepots and spouses, because they breed politics. Whenever two of our people get married, one of them must depart - preferably the female, to look after her baby.
what (4) I admire people who work with gusto. If you don't enjoy you are doing, I beg you to find another job. Remember the Scottish proverb, "Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead."
(5) I despise toadies who suck up to their bosses; they are generally the same people who bully their subordinates
(6) I admire self-confident professionals, the craftsmen who do their jobs with superlative excellence. They always seem to respect the expertise of their colleagues. They don't poach.
(7) I admire people who hire subordinates who are good enough to succeed them. I pity people who are so insecure that they feel compelled to hire inferiors as their subordinates.
(8) I admire people who build up their subordinates, because this is the only way we can promote from within the ranks. I detest having to go outside to fill important jobs, and I look forward to the day when that will never be necessary.
(9) I admire people with gentle manners who treat other people as human beings. I abhor quarrelsome people. I abhor people who wage paper-warfare. The best way to keep the peace is to be candid. Remember Blake:
I was angry with my friend; I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe; I told it not, my wrath did grow.
(10) I admire well-organised people who deliver their work on time. The Duke of Wellington never went home until he had finished all the work on his desk (Page 36)
Having told my staff what I expect of them, I then tell them what I expect of myself:
(1) I try to be fair and to be firm, to make unpopular decisions without cowardice, to create an atmosphere of stability, and to listen more than I talk.
(2) I try to sustain the momentum of the agency - its ferment, its vitality, its forward thrust.
37 (3) I try to build the agency by landing new accounts. (At this point the upturned faces in my audience look like baby birds waiting for the father bird to feed them.)
(4) I try to win the confidence of our clients at their highest level.
(5) I try to make sufficient profits to keep you all from penury in old age.
(6) I plan our policies far into the future.
(7) I try to recruit people of the highest quality at all levels, to build the hottest staff in the agency business.
(8) I try to get the best out of every man and woman in the agency. (Page 38)
Running an agency takes vitality, and sufficient resilience to pick oneself up after defeats. (Page 38)
Note: Emphasis on vitality and resilience
The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but it can be more satisfying. (Page 39)
* "The Psychology of Imagination" by Frank Barron, Scientific American (September 1958), (Page 40)
Note: Reading list
And talent, I believe, is most likely to be found among nonconformists, dissenters, and rebels. (Page 42)
I am almost incapable of logical thought, but I have developed techniques for keeping open the telephone line to my unconscious, in case that disorderly repository has anything to tell me. I hear a great deal of music. I am on friendly terms with John Barleycorn. I take long hot baths. I garden. I go into retreat among the Amish. I watch birds. I go for long walks in the country. And I take frequent vacations, so that my brain can lie fallow - no golf, no cocktail parties, no tennis, no bridge, no concentration; only a bicycle. (Page 42)
Note: Tony Fadell also remarks about boredom vacations where he cleans put his garage etc.
If Oxford undergraduates were paid for their work, I would have performed miracles of scholarship and become Regius Professor of Modern History; it wasn't until I tasted lucre on Madison Avenue that I began to work in earnest. (Page 43)
Management cannot be expected to recognise a good idea unless it is presented to them by a good salesman. (Page 43)
Your vitality and resilience make it possible for you to remain calm and cheerful-contagiously cheerful through all the tribulations which buffet copy chiefs. (Page 44)
Note: We are of like minds, belief in the importance of being spirited and resilient.
On the day in 1948 when I hung out my shingle, I issued the following Order of the Day:
This is a new agency, struggling for its life. For some time we shall be overworked and underpaid. (Page 47)
Note: For young Bert. This has not changed.
Next to luck, fertility and midnight oil are the best weapons to use in hunting new business. (Page 55)
Note: Mettleist mentality
But I regard the hunt for new clients as a sport... If you play it grimly, you will die of ulcers. If you play it with lighthearted gusto, you will survive your failures without losing sleep. Play to win, but enjoy the fun. (Page 58)
Note: Again spirited resilience.
I was brought up with my father's favourite proverb ringing in my ears,
"Hard work never killed a man.” (Page 62)
Frightened agencies lose the courage to give candid advice; once you lose that you become a lackey. (Page 66)
Note: fear-based leadership creates lackeys. I want the most accurate representation of reality at all times.
2) I never accept an account unless I believe that we can do a conspicuously better job than the previous agency. When The New York Times asked us to do their advertising, I declined, because I didn't think we could produce better advertisements than the brilliant ones they had been running. (Page 67)
Note: accurate assessment of reality in the wild
These rare trumpeter swans must be capable of inspiring a motley crew of writers and artists; they must be sure-footed judges of campaigns for a wide range of different products; they must be good presenters; and they must have a colossal appetite for midnight oil. (Page 69)
Note: Identify and nominate a trumpeter swan to captain
Before launching into my pitch, I asked three questions:
"How many of the end-uses for rayon must be covered in your campaign?" Answer: automobile tyres, furnishing fabrics, industrial products, women's clothing, men's clothing.
"How much money is available?" Answer: $600,000.
“How many people must OK the advertisements?" Answer: the twelve members of the Committee, representing twelve manufacturers.
"Ring the bell!" I said, and walked out.
Them's the conditions what prevail with almost all association accounts.
Too many masters, too many objectives, too little money (Page 71)
Note: Share with JW
In his first year as head of J. Walter Thompson he resigned a hundred accounts, unprofitable undergrowth. That was his first step in making JWT the biggest agency in the world.) (Page 73)
Note: Narrow the focus
I like to succeed in public, but to fail in secret. (Page 74)
I have always tried to sit on the same side of the table as my clients, to see problems through their eyes. I buy shares in their company, so that I can think like a member of their family.
When I take a total view of their business, I am better able to give them sound advice (Page 81)
Note: Skin in the game
With big corporations, this process of reselling the agency never ends. It is time-consuming and wearisome, but it is vitally important. New brooms are a constant threat to the stability of agency-client relationships (Page 82)
Note: True of any large organization that regularly re-orgs
important to admit your mistakes, and to do so before you are charged with them. Many clients are surrounded by buckpassers who make a fine art of blaming the agency for their own failures. I seize the earliest opportunity to assume the blame. (Page 83)
But no team can write an advertisement, and I doubt whether there is a single agency of any consequence which is not the lengthened shadow of one man (Page 86)
Note: Who’s shadow are we lengthening? By committee is the surest route to mediocrity/mid-wit land.
I wonder if any barrister has to spend as many nights as I do preparing for the presentations which succeed each other with such remorseless regularity. (Page 87)
Note: Winging it is for incompetent amateurs
If I were a manufacturer, I would look for an agency which had no new-business department. The best agencies don't need them; they get all the business they can handle without preparing speculative campaigns. (Page 95)
I expect to be remembered as the heretic who pioneered a course which conferred professional status on advertising agents. (Page 100)
"What you have just shown me is not up to your usual high standard. Please take another crack at it." At the same time you should explain exactly what you find inadequate about the submission; don't leave your agency to guess. (Page 102)
Note: Nice way to phrase constructive criticism
(10) Set high standards.
Discourage bunting. Make it plain that you expect your agency to hit home runs, and pour on the praise when they do. (Page 102)
Note: Slootman - raise your standards
(11) Test everything, (Page 103)
(12) Hurry. Most young men in big corporations behave as if profit were not a function of time. (Page 103)
Note: Slootman - Pick up the pace
cut your loss, and move on. (Page 104)
Note: Foundational cross over skill to develop.
Concentrate your time, your brains, and your advertising money on your successes. Recognise success when it comes, and pour on the advertising.
Note: Slootman - narrow the focus /
Back your winners, and abandon your losers. (Page 104)
Note: also applies to investing/trading
Shakespeare (Page 107)
Note: So many references to Shakespeare I need to read Shakespeare
When Aeschines spoke, they said, "How well he speaks." But when Demosthenes spoke, they said, "Let us march against Philip." I'm for Demosthenes. (Page 108)
Note: Inspire action
I am an inveterate brain picker, and the most rewarding brains I have picked are the brains of my predecessors and my competitors. I have learned much from studying the successful campaigns of Raymond Rubicam, Jim Young, and George Cecil. (Page 110)
Note: Always be picking brains
You aren't advertising to a standing army; you are advertising to a moving parade. Three million consumers get married every year. The advertisement which sold a refrigerator to those who got married last year will probably be just as successful with those who get married next year. (Page 115)
Note: Human nature changes very little, if something is working grease that groove. Repeat your message. Not everyone is ready to hear it when you say it.
An advertisement is like a radar sweep, constantly hunting new prospects as they come into the market. Get a good radar, and keep it sweeping (Page 116)
Note: Yes and also applies to networks
The manufacturer who dedicates his advertising to building the most sharply defined personality for his brand will get the largest share of the market at the highest profit. (Page 118)
Ogilvy, Benson & Mather has a consistent point of view, a corporate opinion of what constitutes good advertising. (Page 120)
Note: This goes for individuals as well as companies.
In my first Rolls-Royce advertisement I used 719 words -piling one fascinating fact on another. (Page 125)
Note: Cram as many fascinating facts into communications as humanly possible
In a class by himself stands Claude Hopkins, who is to advertising what Escoffier is to cooking (Page 129)
Note: Future reading Hopkins and Escoffier
There is no need for advertisements to look like advertisements. If you make them look like editorial pages, you will attract about 50 per cent more readers. You might think that the public would resent this trick, but there is no evidence to suggest that they do. (Page 137)
Note: Interesting
explanatory captions under photographs more than they read the text of articles; and the same thing is true of advertisements. When we analysed Starch data on advertisements in Life, we found that on the average twice as many people read the captions as read the body copy. Thus captions offer you twice the audience you get for body copy. It follows that you should never use a photograph without putting a caption under it, and each caption should be a miniature advertisement, complete with brand name and promise. (Page 138)
Note: This is highly under-utilized in most publications. I need to make better use of photos and captions.
Never deface your illustration by printing your headline over it. Old-fashioned art directors love doing this, but it reduces the attention value of the advertisement by an average of 19 per cent. Newspaper editors never do it. In general, imitate the editors; they form the reading habits of your customers. (Page 140)
"shaking the Pagoda-tree." (Page 159)
Note: What a peculiar turn of phrase
set yourself to becoming the best-informed man in the agency on the account to which you are assigned. If, for example, it is a gasoline account, read text books on the chemistry, geology and distribution of petroleum products. Read all the trade journals in the field. Read all the research reports and marketing plans that your agency has ever written on the product. Spend Saturday mornings in service stations, pumping gasoline and talking to motorists. Visit your client's refineries and research laboratories. Study the advertising of his competitors (Page 160)
Note: Excellent advice. I wish I had heard this when I was getting my start
Most of the young men in agencies are too lazy to do this kind of homework. They remain permanently superficial. (Page 160)
Note: Superficiality is the kiss of death
Managers promote the men who produce the most (Page 160)
Note: Show up and do the work everyday
This emphasis on "team-work" is bunkum - a conspiracy of the mediocre majority. (Page 160)
Note: I believe in the power of collaboration, but teams that turn into committees are destined to be mid.
specialists before they reached the top (Page 161)
Note: Specialize in something, anything.
in media, research or copy. He would find the competition less formidable in these departments, he would find more frequent opportunities to rise above routine maintenance work, and he would acquire an expertise which gives a man security psychological and financial (Page 162)
Note: Advice to his own child. Wise to seek areas of less formidable competition.
It spurs individual exertion and greater production. (Page 167)
Note: Churchill on the value of advertisements
We prefer the discipline of knowledge to the anarchy of ignorance.
I admire people with gentle manners who treat other people as human beings. (Page 182)
Note: Ogilvyisms