Chapter 44 - The Unpublished David Ogilvy
Today’s Chapter is based on the book “The Unpublished David Ogilvy” by David Ogilvy, the “Father of Advertising” and founder of Ogilvy & Mather.
Here’s what I have learned from the book:
How to Live
"Learn how to be a person first. Learn how to do things later.”
— Ho Sin Hang
Warren Buffett once called David Ogilvy a genius. While Ogilvy was certainly an eccentric, he believed that his success came from hard work rather than being a so-said “genius”.
As a matter of fact, Ogilvy believed in the old Scottish proverb who said “Hard work never killed a man.” Similarly, Ogilvy mentioned that “Men die of boredom, psychological conflict and disease. They do not die of hard work. The harder your people work, the happier and healthier they will be.”
“I am a stickler for meeting deadlines. I can do almost any job in one weekend. I think everyone can. The trouble is that most chaps are too lazy to burn the midnight oil. They are unwilling to rise to the occasion.”
— David Ogilvy
Furthermore, Ogilvy was also a firm believer that success has nothing to do with luck. He once said, “It has absolutely nothing to do with luck. Everybody’s equally lucky. I don’t believe in luck." He also mentions that the lack of a college degree should not affect one’s success especially as a business leader. Ogilvy once said that “The character traits which make people scholars in their youth are not the traits which make them leaders in later life.”
For Ogilvy, the main goal of higher education is not to learn through memorisation, but to inspire students to learn on their own. As Ogilvy once said, “The mission of a great school is not to cram you with facts so that you can regurgitate them a few weeks later at an exam. This gives many boys such a distaste for learning that they never read another book as long as they live. No, the mission of a school is to inspire you with a taste for scholarship—a taste which will last you all your life.“
“Don’t judge the value of higher education in terms of careermanship. Judge it for what it is–a priceless opportunity to furnish your mind and enrich the qualify of your life.”
— David Ogilvy
This reminds me of what we have learned from Edwin Land who encouraged an “education without a degree”. As a matter of fact, Land first took a leave of absence from Harvard University to move to New York. He studied polarization by reading all books available at the New York Public Library.
The second time Land left Harvard, this time for good, it was to create his own laboratory with George Wheelwright. Land realised that opening his own laboratory to make his own experiments would be more educational than continuing with his degree. This desire to learn through reading continued for the rest of his life. This led to Land insisting on having his own company’s library at Polaroid with two full-time librarians.
“The point is this: great piles of knowledge in the head are not the same as mental activity. A man may be very learned and very useless. And then again, a man may be unlearned and very useful.
(…)
The object of education is not to fill a man’s mind with facts; it is to teach him how to use his mind in thinking.”
— Henry Ford
So, how did Ogilvy become so successful? Here’s how he explains it in his own words:
First of all, I’m the most objective man who ever lived, including objective about myself.
Second, I’m a very, very hard worker. I really work very hard when I’m doing a job. I put a lot into it.
Next thing is I’m a good salesman. I used to be good at getting new business. That’s terribly important. It’s underestimated in the advertising business now–getting new business. Most people in advertising don’t know anything about it. They go to work in an agency. They’re given an account or a group of accounts that some joker got a few years ago. The bed is ready made for them. I had to make my own bed. I was a very, very good salesman. I don’t know why. But I was a good salesman. And that’s an important thing to be.
I had a reasonably original mind, but not too much so. Which helped, not being too original. I thought as clients think. I also thought as women think. One of the advertising directors of Lever Brothers, who left, came to see me to say goodbye, and said David you’re very good at selling things to women. And the reason is, I’ve thought a lot about it, the reason is you are a woman. You think as women think. So that’s another thing.
How to Advertise
“You aren’t advertising to a standing army; you are advertising to a moving parade.”
— David Ogilvy
David Ogilvy, considered the “Father of Advertising”, obviously has a lot to share concerning the art of advertising. Ogilvy is notorious for promoting the idea that companies should take advertising not as an expense but as a long-term investment in building the company’s brand. He once said that “every advertisement is part of the long-term in the personality of the brand.”
As a matter of fact, Ogilvy explains that the company “who dedicates his advertising to building the most favourable image, the most sharply defined personality, is the one who will get the largest share of the market at the highest profit—in the long run.”
For this reason, Ogilvy mentions that he must plan ten years ahead when writing advertisements for his clients, as he must create a a distinct personality for each of his clients’ companies. Once that is done, he must stick to those personalities year after year.
“Today, I have come to believe, with Gardner and Levy, that every advertisement must be considered as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image. And I find that if you take that long-term approach, a great many of the day-to-day creative questions answer themselves.”
— David Ogilvy
Perhaps due to his own incentives, Ogilvy has always been critical of companies who cut on their advertising expenses. He believed that if the managers of the company were thinking in terms of long-term, they would be much more willing to invest more in building the brand name of the company.
As we have learned previously from Bernard Arnault, brand name can be used as a powerful moat. As a matter of fact, Bernard purchased Dior because it embodied “everything that is most beautiful in the world.” Unlike others, Arnault had understood that luxury was a truly profitable industry. He explained that “It is the only area which it is possible to make luxury profit margins.”
Here’s what Arnault said concerning his objective at the helm of LVMH following his purchase of LVMH which truly highlights his understanding of the power of brand name.
“My ten-year objective is that LVMH’s leading position in the world be further strengthened in the luxury goods sector. I believe that there will be fewer and fewer brand names capable of retaining a worldwide presence and that those of our group will be among them as we will provide them with the means for growth [...] My plan for the next six months is to see all the group managers and increase their motivation by sharing my highly ambitious objectives with them.”
— Bernard Arnault
As such, if you wish to write good advertisement, it starts with being selective with the clients you work with. You must solely work with clients that have an aligned long-term vision. In fact, Ogilvy mentions that his firm seeks clients “whose basic attitudes to business are about the same as ours.”
Another reason for Ogilvy’s success in advertising is due to the fact that he looks at the creative function through the eyes of a researcher. In fact, he believes that one must know everything about the product he wishes to advertise. He once said that the “Quality of salesmanship involves energy, time and knowledge of the product.”
Here’s a humorous step-by-step guide on how Ogilvy wrote advertisements as a copywriter, in his own words:
I have never written an advertisement in the office. Too many interruptions. I do all my writing at home.
I spend a long time studying the precedents. I look at every advertisement which has appeared for competing products during the past 20 years. I am helpless without research material–and the more “motivational” the better.
I write out a definition of the problem and a statement of the purpose which I wish the campaign to achieve.
Before actually writing the copy, I write down every conceivable fact and selling idea. Then I get them organized and relate them to research and the copy platform.
Then I write the headline. As a matter of fact I try to write 20 alternative headlines for every advertisement. And I never select the final headline without asking the opinions of other people in the agency.
At this point I can no longer postpone doing the actual copy. So I go home and sit down at my desk. I find myself entirely without ideas. I get bad-tempered. If my wife comes into the room I growl at her.
I am terrified of producing a lousy advertisement. This causes me to throw away the first 20 attempts.
If all else fails, I drink half a bottle of rum and play a Handel oratorio on the gramophone. This generally produces an uncontrollable gush of copy.
Next morning I get up early and edit the gush.
Then I take the train to New York and my secretary types a draft. (I cannot type, which is very inconvenient.)
I am a lousy copywriter, but I am a good editor. So I go to work editing my own draft. After four or five editings, it looks good enough to show to the client. If the client changes the copy, I get angry–because I took a lot of trouble writing it, and what I wrote I wrote on purpose.
In my opinion, Ogilvy’s work habits as a copywriter reminds me of the way Robert Caro works as a writer, through his investigation works and his habits of rewriting.
Firstly, as we have learned from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author, it is important to turn every rocks when doing researches. One of Caro’s motto is the following: “Just remember, turn every page. Never assume anything. Turn every goddamned page.”
For example, when Caro was preparing to write his biography on Lyndon Johnson, he decided to move to Hill Country and live there in order to better understand the people he was interviewing. Once he rented a house and lived in Hill Country for the next three years, everything changed. The people there started to open up and to talk to him in a different light: they were now including details that were not mentioned previously in their anecdotes about Lyndon Johnson.
Secondly, similarly to Ogilvy, Caro had the habit of rewriting. He often had to triple-space the lines in order to allow plenty of room for him to rewrite in pencil in case he had new insights or thoughts on the matter at hand:
“I triple-space the lines the way I did as a newspaperman, so there will be plenty of room to rewrite in pencil. I rewrite a lot. Sometimes I look at a page I typed but have reworked in pencil, and there’s hardly a word in type left on it. Or no words in type left at all—every one has been crossed out. And often there’s been so much writing and rewriting and erasing that the page has to be tossed out completely. At the end of the day there will be a great many crumpled-up sheets of paper in the wastepaper basket or on the floor around it.”
— Robert Caro
How to Lead
“Well, yes, because, I mean, to be a leader, you must be able to communicate your feelings and move the other fellow. It's not just ideas, you know.”
— Lee Kuan Yew
David Ogilvy once said that leadership is the subject that interests him the most after advertising. In fact, he mentions that “when Ogilvy & Mather appoints good leaders to manage our offices, everything blossoms. When we appoint a poor leader, everything withers.”
Luckily, due to his matter of work, Ogilvy had the great opportunities to observe the individuals at the head of great corporations. What he has learned is that “great leadership can have an electrifying effect on the performance of any corporation. Perhaps the best leader I have encountered in corporate life was General Wood of Sears, Roebuck.”
He noticed that the best leaders are unorthodox mavericks. They not only embrace innovation, they symbolize it. Ogilvy explains that “Great leaders almost seem to exude self-confidence. They are never petty. They are big men. They are never buck passers. They are resilient; they pick themselves up after defeat”
Furthermore, Ogilvy noticed that there is no correlation between industrial leadership and high academic achievement. As such, the skills which makes a man a good student is not the same as the skills needed to be a good leader. Ogilvy explains that “great leaders are always fanatically committed to their jobs. They are not lazy, or amateurs.”
Here are the qualifications that Ogilvy looks for in a leader:
High standards of personal ethics.
Big people, without prettiness.
Guts under pressure, resilience in defeat.
Brilliant brains–not safe plodders.
A capacity for hard work and midnight oil.
Charisma–charm and persuasiveness.
A streak of unorthodoxy–creative innovators.
The courage to make tough decisions.
Inspiring enthusiasts–with thrust and gusto.
A sense of humor.
“The man who has said the wisest things about leadership is, in my opinion, Field Marshall Montgomery. He has said: “The leader must have infectious optimism, and the determination to persevere in the face of difficulties. He must also radiate confidence, even when he himself is not too certain of the outcome. “The final test of a leader is the feeling you have when you leave his presence after a conference. Have you a feeling of uplift and confidence?””
— David Ogilvy
This reminds of what we have learned from J. Paul Getty in his book “How to be Rich”. Getty mentions that it is primordial for the success of the business to be able to identify and hire good executives. Here’s a reminder on the five qualities that it takes for one to be considered a good executive in the eyes of Getty:
Example is the best means to instruct or inspire others. The man who shows them as well as tells them is the one who gets the most from his surbordinates.
A good executive accepts full responsibility for the actions of the people under him. If called before his superiors because something has gone wrong in his department or office, he accepts full personal blame, for the fault is his for having exercised poor supervision.
The best leader never asks anyone under him to do anything he is unable or unwilling to do himself.
The man in charge must be fair but firm with his subordinates, showing concern for their needs and doing all he can to meet their reasonable requests. He treats his juniors with patience, understanding and respect and backs them to the hilt. On the other hand, he does not pamper them, and always bears in mind that familiarity breeds contempt.
There is one seemingly small-but actually very important-point that all executives should remember. Praise should always be given in public, criticism should always be delivered in private. Employees who have done a good job should be told so in front of their fellows; this raises morale all around. Employees who have done something wrong should be told so in private: otherwise, they will be humiliated and morale will drop.
How to Run A Business
“It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.”
— Steve Jobs
Ogilvy, as the founder of Ogilvy & Mather, has much to say on how to run a successful advertising business. The first thing he teaches us is to hire people who are strong in the areas you are lacking. He once said, “Don’t compound your own weaknesses by employing people in key positions who have the same weakness.”
As a matter of fact, Ogilvy explains that if you find an an individual who is smarter than you are, you should hire him at all cost. If need be, pay him more than you pay yourself. Once they are hired, keep them at all cost! Ogilvy explains that “the loss of an exceptional man can be as damaging as the loss of an account.”
David Ogilvy once gave Matryoshka dolls to his senior executives to teach them the lesson of always hiring people smarter than you are:
“I said: “That’s you. Open it.” So they opened the doll, and inside was a smaller one. And they opened it up and each doll got smaller and smaller. And finally, when they got to the very inside, in the smallest doll they found a tiny piece of paper on which I had written a motto. When they unfolded it, it said: “If you always hire people who are smaller than you are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. If, on the other hand, you always hire people who are bigger than you are, we shall become a company of giants.””
— David Ogilvy
This is eerily similar to what we have learned from Danny Meyer, the founder of Shake Shack. Meyer implemented a final but critical test when evaluating potential hiring candidates. He requested that all of his managers ask themselves one final question before hiring someone: “Do they believe the candidate has the capacity to become one of the top three performers on our team in his or her job category? If people cannot ever develop into one of our top three cooks, servers, managers, or maître d’s, why would we hire them? How will they help us improve and become champions?”This is incredibly important as it helps to weed out mediocrity as it is extremely dangerous for a company to hire a “whelming” candidate as it can cause an organisation a long-lasting harm.
“Overwhelmers earn you raves. Underwhelmers either leave on their own or are terminated. Whelmers, sadly, are like a stubborn stain you can’t get out of the carpet. They infuse an organization and its staff with mediocrity; they’re comfortable, and so they never leave; and, frustratingly, they never do anything that rises to the level of getting them promoted or sinks to the level of getting them fired. And because you either can’t or don’t fire them, you and they conspire to send a dangerous message to your staff and guests that “average” is acceptable.”
— Danny Meyer
Furthermore, Ogilvy believes that in a company, it is important to help each other and that “the sum of our individual parts will give us a competitive advantage over international agencies which allow iron curtains to separate their offices from each other.” As such, Ogilvy reminds us that it is important to encourage free communication upward.
By encouraging junior people to be honest and by asking their advices, you may be able to find better ideas. In fact, Ogilvy explains that employees should not hesitate to speak out and to disagree with something he says, because they often have information that he doesn’t have.
“Senior men and women have no monopoly on great ideas. Nor do Creative people. Some of the best ideas come from account executives, researchers and others. Encourage this; you need all the ideas you can get. Encourage innovation. Change is our lifeblood, stagnation our death knell.”
— David Ogilvy
Finally, Ogilvy believes that “One of the most priceless assets Ogilvy & Mather can have is the respect of our clients and the whole business community.” In fact, considering Ogilvy’s business nature, he truly believed that his company was in business to earn a profit through superior service to clients.
To do so, Ogilvy mentions the following rules to succeed in having the respect of his clients and of the business community:
Our offices must always be headed by the kind of people who command respect. Not phonies, zeros or bastards.
“If they are respected as admirable people, the agency gets business–whether from present clients or prospective ones.“
— David Ogilvy
Always be honest in your dealings with clients. Tell them what you would do if you were in their shoes.
“The recommendations we make to clients are the recommendations we would make if we owned their companies, without regard to our own short-term interest. This earns their respect, which is the greatest asset an agency can have.“
— David Ogilvy
If we do a good job for our clients, that will become known. We will smell of success, and that will bring us respect.
“The best way to get new accounts is to create for our present clients the kind of advertising that will attract prospective clients.”
— David Ogilvy
If we treat our employees well, they will speak well of Ogilvy & Mather to their friends. Assuming that each employee has 100 friends, 250,000 people now have friends who work for Ogilvy & Mather. Among them are present and prospective clients.
In meeting with clients, do not assume the posture of servants. They need you as much as you need them.
While you are responsible to your clients for sales results, you are also responsible to consumers for the kind of advertising you bring into their homes. Your aim should be to create advertising that is in good taste. I abhor advertising that is blatant, dull, or dishonest. Agencies which transgress this principle are not widely respected.
We must pull our weight as good citizens.
Beyond the Book
Read "Henry Ford and the Actual Value of Education" by Farnam Street
Read "Moats" by Investment Masters Class
Read "Job Interviews Don’t Work" by Farnam Street