• Print Page
• eMail Page

Search website for :

Home→The Westburn Dictionary of Marketing→O→Ogilvy, David

Ogilvy, David

Definition:
(1911- ). Advertising agent and copywriter. Born in England, schooled in Edinburgh and educated at Oxford, David Ogilvy went to the USA, set up an advertising agency in New York on $6,000 capital and no clients at all. Today, Ogilvy & Mather is ranked seventh in the world, but, to Ogilvy's chagrin, was bought in 1989 by Martin SORRELL'S WPP Group. Ogilvy Group (Holdings) occupies the same place in Britain, as its parent does in the world ranking with total BILLINGS of £289.7 million and 1,009 staff in 1988. The eponymous advertising agency stands at number five in CAMPAIGN magazine's 'Top 300'. Ogilvy is best known for a press advertising campaign in America in the 1960s which made the Rolls-Royce a serious competitor to Cadillac and Lincoln. The celebrated headline of one advertisement in the series was 'At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.' Ogilvy himself attributes the success of the campaign not only to clever headlines (another asked 'Should every corporation buy its president a Rolls-Royce?') but also to the long, detailed 'reason-why' arguments in the BODY COPY, as pioneered by Claude HOPKINS. Nevertheless, he once remarked that a good headline is 'eighty cents of your client's dollar'. An Ogilvy characteristic which many commentators have criticized is his predilection for devising 'rules' for successful advertising and enshrining them in publications. It is alleged that Ogilvy & Mather today breaks many of the founder's most dogmatic injunctions - about the number of words in a headline, for example - but he responds that the original intent has been misinterpreted.  Though now retired to a chateau in France, he still exercises strong control over Ogilvy & Mather's creative standards, directly and indirectly. David Ogilvy's highly individual view of advertising can be sampled in Ogilvy on Advertising (1983), an updated re-issue of Confessions of an Advertising Man (1962).

Cross-References:
[Hopkins, Claude] [billing] [Sorrell, Martin] [body copy] [Campaign]

Links:

Figures:

© Westburn Publishers Ltd 2002, The Westburn Dictionary of Marketing edited by Michael J Baker, ISBN 978-0-946433-01-8. www.themarketingdictionary.com. Entry: [Keith Crosier], [1998].