David Ogilvy

Early life (1911–1938)

David Mackenzie Ogilvy was born on June 23, 1911 at West Horsley, Surrey, the son of a classics scholar and financial broker. At the age of 13 he attended Fettes College, in Edinburgh, and won a scholarship in history to Christ Church College, Oxford six years later in 1929. Without the scholarship he would have been unable to attend university because his father’s business was badly hit by the depression of the mid-twenties. In the event, his studies were unsuccessful and he left Oxford for Paris in 1931 without graduating. He became an apprentice chef in the Majestic Hotel. After a year in Paris he returned to England and started selling Aga cooking stoves door-to-door. His success at this marked him out to his employer, who asked him to write an instruction manual for the other salesmen. Thirty years later this manual was still read by Fortune magazine editors. They called it the finest sales instruction manual ever written. His older brother Francis Ogilvy, who was working for the London advertising agency Mather & Crowther, showed this manual to the agency management, who offered Ogilvy a position as an account executive. In 1938 he persuaded the agency to send him to the United States for a year.

At Gallup (1938–1948)

In 1938 Ogilvy went to America. David took up with research giant George Gallup, in 1939, and spent 3 years criss-crossing the globe on behalf of Gallup's Hollywood clients. After 3 years with Gallup, David joined the war effort as British Intelligence. In 1948, after a disastrous effort as a Pennsylvanian tobacco farmer, Ogilvy moved wife and son to New York City, finally intending to start his own agency.

The O&M Years (1949–1973)

After working as a chef, researcher and farmer Ogilvy started his agency along with two other partners Mather and Crowther. It was named Ogilvy, Mather & Crowther. After the exit of Crowther it was named Ogilvy & Mather. Ogilvy just had $6000 in his account when he started the agency. He writes in his book Confessions of an Advertising Man that initially he had to struggle to get clients.

But his belief was strong. He made best of whatever came his way. Early success of his famous campaigns—the Hathaway shirt, Schweppes—rocked Madison Avenue.

He believed that the best way to get new clients is to do great work for existing clients. And he was right. Success of his early campaigns helped him to get big clients like Rolls-Royce and Shell.

He created an avalanche of new clients. O&M was an instant success.

He retired in 1973.

Life with WPP and afterwards (1989–1999)

In 1989 The Ogilvy Group was bought by WPP Group, a British holding company, for just US$864 million. This is the only known hostile takeover in the history of advertising business, which was possible as O&M was one of the first ad agencies (and not a holding company) that had gone public and in the past, David Ogilvy talked publicly of the virtues of the stock market. The takeover catapulted WPP, which also owned the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson and a number of other companies, into the top three largest marketing services groups in the world. Ogilvy was personally offended by the takeover of his agency and attacked the WPP chairman, Sir Martin Sorrell, in public, using profanities and racial abuse (eg 'odious little shit')—for which he later apologised in a private letter. It is said to be the only time Ogilvy ever offered an apology, which now hangs in the office of Sorrell. Although Ogilvy went into retirement, on official records he served as WPP’s non-executive chairman for three years.

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