ogilvy confessions of an advertising man

His 1983 “ Ogilvy On Advertising” comes closer to that mark. Many principles hold up well, but it is not a creative textbook for today. It is the quintessential how-to book - how to manage an agency, get and keep clients, be a good client, build great campaigns, write “potent” copy. His principles for magazines and newspapers fail to anticipate the potential of poster-type visuals - art directors were there to illustrate his text. But the chapter on TV is a bit primitive in its understanding of the medium. It paraded his study of mail-order advertising and his experience as a researcher for George Gallup to show how consumer research can make advertising more effective. What was it about “Confessions” - still in print nearly 50 years later - that struck such a nerve, and caused it to endure?ĭespite the title, the volume contains few actual confessions, but there were enough juicy tidbits that few readers felt misled. Ogilvy was hardly the first advertising man to write a book - it is almost an occupational disease of the business.

And it made Ogilvy the most famous advertising man in the world. It led to a lot of new business for the agency. As a standard text in business schools, it formed the view of thousands of students and lured some to advertising careers. As the only advertising book most people outside the business have ever read, it molded public perception of what the business was actually like. “Confessions” was an instant success and went on to become the best-selling advertising book of all time, selling several million copies and translated all over the world. He saw the book as a new-business pitch for his agency, but allowed it was also to prepare the agency for going public and, in complete candor, “to make myself better known in the advertising world.” His method: to set down everything he had learned about advertising - “a textbook, sugar-coated with anecdotes.” He guessed it might sell 4,000 copies and assigned the royalties to his son for his 21st birthday - a decision he always regretted. In that brief period, he had created “The Man in the Hathaway Shirt,” Commander Whitehead for Schweppes, Rolls-Royce’s “the loudest noise is … the electric clock,” and Dove’s “one-quarter cleansing cream,” among other iconic campaigns.

David Ogilvy had been in the advertising business only 15 years when he wrote “ Confessions of an Advertising Man” in 1962.

Ogilvy confessions of an advertising man