Ogilvy

David Ogilvy, in full David Mackenzie Ogilvy (born June 23, 1911, West Horsley, Surrey, Englanddied July 21, 1999, near Bonnes, France), British advertising executive known for his emphasis on creative copy and campaign themes, founder of the agency of Ogilvy & Mather.

Ogilvy was the son of a classics scholar and broker, but financial reverses left the family in straitened circumstance when he was a boy. Nonetheless, he earned scholarships to Fettes College, Edinburgh, and to Christ Church, Oxford. After leaving Oxford without a degree, Ogilvy found work as an apprentice chef at an exclusive Parisian hotel and as a stove salesman. Then a brother working in the British advertising agency of Mather & Crowther offered him a job. He soon became an account executive and went to the United States to learn American advertising techniques. While there, Ogilvy worked for the American pollster George Gallup; he later credited much of his success in advertising to this experience.

During World War II Ogilvy served in British Intelligence in Washington, D.C., and for a time was second secretary at the British embassy there. After the war, he tried farming in the Amish area of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, but, being unable to make a living at it, he turned again to advertising. In 1948 Ogilvy and Anderson Hewitt formed Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson & Mather, with some financial help from his former English employers and another English advertising agency. They started out with British clients, such as the manufacturers of Wedgwood china and Rolls-Royce. Ogilvys successful ad campaigns for early clients soon garnered for the agency such major American ad accounts as General Foods and American Express. In 1966, with Ogilvy at the helm, the firm of Ogilvy & Mather became one of the first advertising firms to go public. The company expanded throughout the 1970s and 80s, and in 1989 it was bought by WPP Group PLC. Ogilvy was then made chairman of WPP, but he stepped down from that position three years later, retiring to a chateau in France.

Ogilvys legacy includes the concept of branding, a strategy that closely links a product name with a product in the hope of engendering brand loyalty in the consumer, and a distinctive style that bore his personal stampamong his notable ads were those for Hathaway shirts, featuring a distinguished-looking man with an eyepatch, and for Rolls-Royce, which proclaimed At sixty miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock. He wrote two influential books on advertisingConfessions of an Advertising Man (1963) and Ogilvy on Advertising (1983)and An Autobiography (1997; a revised edition of a book originally published as Blood, Brains, and Beer, 1978). Ogilvy insisted that it is better not to advertise than to use poorly designed or poorly written advertisements

Playful Concept in Designing Ogilvy & Mather Advertising Agency

We have discovered on Office Snapshots a wonderful and colourful workspace and we are eager to share it with you. The client is a very well known advertising agency, Ogilvy & Mather which has finally succeeded to create in Jakarta a playground for big people, supported by M Moser Associates. When it comes to advertising agencies, architects and designers think twice before starting a brainstorming on how the workplace should actually look. A previous discussion about the vision and the agencys values is highly recommended. The clients are always strangely pretentious, expecting something fun, playful and revolutionary out of the design project. Somehow, its in their job description to look for an inspiring idea that transforms a dull spot into an animated place, that not only generates good ideas, but it also ends up being the constant inspiration food for the creatives.

After seeing the concept for Ogilvy & Mather in Jakarta, it crossed my mind that the following quote could have been the incentive for this magnificent output: The creative adult is the child who has survived. The general line on which the architects built this iconic workspace was the playful contradiction of colours, fabrics, shapes and as a whole, the atmosphere. The reconstruction has started once realizing that the external sources of stress: like the traffic, the dull colours have a negative effect upon the employees. Then as a contradiction, the inside had to be a care-free spot, tranquil and delightful. Ramesh, one of the architects, stated: The whole idea was to create a sharp contrast to whats outside. The Ogilvy office in Jakarta embraces playful typography decorations, soft yellows, natural hardwood and colours. The green, the red invoke energy and passion, in order to let the employees think free and creative. The inspirational environment does nothing else but to improve the quality of work and a healthy way of mixing leisure with your job tasks.