{"id":36950,"date":"2021-06-05T21:17:56","date_gmt":"2021-06-06T02:17:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.adpulp.com\/?p=36950"},"modified":"2021-06-05T21:17:56","modified_gmt":"2021-06-06T02:17:56","slug":"david-ogilvy-ad-legend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adpulp.com\/david-ogilvy-ad-legend\/","title":{"rendered":"David Ogilvy, Ad Legend"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Ogilvy literally wrote the books on the advertising industry. He wrote the bestselling Confessions of an Advertising Man<\/em>, and then followed it up with Ogilvy on Advertising.<\/em> Both books continue to be widely read by students and practitioners today and are considered classics.<\/p>\n

He was a proper Brit, and a restless student who left Oxford University after two years. Ogilvy lived an interesting and full life before<\/em> he became a copywriter and made it big in the Big Apple, eventually retiring\u2014as ad legends do\u2014to a 12th-century castle in France.<\/p>\n

Before he became a copywriter, Ogilvy worked in the kitchen of an elite Paris restaurant, an experience that helped shape his ideas about elevating craft, persistent hard work, and no-nonsense management. He was also a door-to-door salesman and for three years, a farmer in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

He Learned to Sell By Knocking Lots of Doors<\/h2>\n

Ogilvy’s early work selling Aga Ovens door-to-door played a key role in shaping his later work. Ogilvy wrote a manual for the company, \u201cThe Theory and Practice of Selling the Aga Cooker,\u201d which not only helped the company sell many more ovens, it landed David Ogilvy a job as a copywriter at Mather and Crowther in London.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe good salesman combines the tenacity of a bulldog with the manner of a spaniel. If you have any charm, ooze it,\u201d he advised in the sales manual.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ogilvy said of his time on the Aga business, \u201cI learned to sell<\/em>, which means listening more than you talk, knowing your product inside and out, having a sense of humor, and telling the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

These principles played out in Ogilvy\u2019s later work for clients. He was an adherent of the “reason why” school of advertising and close friends with its primary proponent, Rosser Reeves<\/a>. Ogilvy was also more expansive than that. He took what he could learn from the sales side of things and also what he could learn from people like Raymond Rubicam and Bill Bernbach, who practiced the more subtle art of brand building fueled by image advertising.<\/p>\n

Dove Creams Your Skin While You Wash<\/h2>\n