David Ogilvy (businessman)

David Mackenzie Ogilvy (23 June 1911 – 21 July 1999) was a British advertising tycoon, founder of Ogilvy & Mather, and known as the "Father of Advertising."

Trained at the Gallup research organisation, he attributed the success of his campaigns to meticulous research into consumer habits.

His most famous campaigns include Rolls-Royce, Dove soap, and Hathaway shirts.

David Mackenzie Ogilvy was born on 23 June 1911 at West Horsley, Surrey in England.

His mother was Dorothy Blew Fairfield, daughter of Arthur Rowan Fairfield, a civil servant from Ireland.

His father, Francis John Longley Ogilvy, was a stockbroker.

He was the first cousin once removed of the writer Rebecca West and of Douglas Holden Blew Jones, who was the brother-in-law of Freda Dudley Ward and the father-in-law of Antony Lambton, 6th Earl of Durham.

Ogilvy attended St Cyprian's School, Eastbourne, on reduced fees because of his father's straitened circumstances and won a scholarship at age thirteen to Fettes College, in Edinburgh.

In 1929, he again won a scholarship, this time in history, to Christ Church, Oxford.

He left Oxford after two years, having failed his exams.

In 1931, he became a kitchen hand at the Hotel Majestic in Paris.

After a year, he returned to Scotland 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, The Theory and Practice of Selling the AGA Cooker, for the other salesmen.

Thirty years later, Fortune magazine editors called it the finest sales instruction manual ever written.

After seeing the manual, Ogilvy's older brother Francis Ogilvy—the father of actor Ian Ogilvy—showed the manual to management at the London advertising agency Mather & Crowther where he was working.

They offered the younger Ogilvy a position as an account executive, which he took up in 1935.

In 1938, Ogilvy persuaded his agency to send him to the United States for a year, where he went to work for George Gallup's Audience Research Institute in New Jersey.

Ogilvy cites Gallup as one of the major influences on his thinking, emphasizing meticulous research methods and adherence to reality.

During World War II, Ogilvy worked for the British Intelligence Service at the British embassy in Washington, DC.

There he analysed and made recommendations on matters of diplomacy and security.

According to a biography produced by Ogilvy & Mather, "he extrapolated his knowledge of human behaviour from consumerism to nationalism in a report which suggested 'applying the Gallup technique to fields of secret intelligence. Eisenhower's Psychological Warfare Board picked up the report and successfully put Ogilvy's suggestions to work in Europe during the last year of the war.

Also during World War II, Ogilvy was a notable alumnus of the secret Camp X, located near the towns of Whitby and Oshawa in Ontario, Canada.

According to an article on the camp: "It was there he mastered the power of propaganda before becoming king of Madison Avenue. Although Ogilvy was trained in sabotage and close combat, he was ultimately tasked with projects that included successfully ruining the reputation of businessmen who were supplying the Nazis with industrial materials."

After the war, Ogilvy bought a farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and lived among the Amish.

The atmosphere of "serenity, abundance, and contentment" kept Ogilvy and his wife in Pennsylvania for several years, but eventually he admitted his limitations as a farmer and moved to Manhattan.

Having worked as a chef, researcher, and farmer, Ogilvy now started his own advertising agency with the backing of Mather and Crowther, the London agency being run by his elder brother, Francis, which later acquired another London agency, S.H. Benson.

The new agency in New York was called Ogilvy, Benson, and Mather.

In 1955, he coined the phrase, "The customer is not a moron, she's your wife" based on these values.

His entry into the company of giants started with several iconic advertising campaigns.

Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt did a commercial for Good Luck Margarine in 1959.

In his autobiography, Ogilvy on Advertising, he said it had been a mistake to persuade her to do the ad – not because it was undignified, but because he had grown to realize that putting celebrities in ads was a mistake.

Ogilvy & Mather instead created celebrities in several campaigns, such as its work for Hathaway shirt, which used George Wrangel as "the man in the Hathaway shirt" sporting his aristocratic eye patch, and Schweppes, which introduced Commander Edward Whitehead, the elegant bearded Briton, to bring Schweppes and "Schweppervescence" to the U.S. with the line "The man from Schweppes is here".

The firm also promoted Rolls-Royce (car) with the famous headline, "At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock".

Ogilvy believed that the best way to get new clients was to do notable work for his existing clients.

David Ogilvy had just $6,000 ($59,726.72 in 2016 dollars) in his account when he started the agency.

He writes in Confessions of an Advertising Man that, initially, he struggled to get clients.

Ogilvy also admitted (referring to the pioneer of British advertising Bobby Bevan, the chairman of Benson): "I was in awe of him but Bevan never took notice of me!"

They would meet later, however.

Ogilvy & Mather was built on David Ogilvy's principles; in particular, that the function of advertising is to sell and that successful advertising for any product is based on information about its consumer.

He disliked advertisements that had loud patronizing voices, and believed a customer should be treated as intelligent.