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DAVID OGILVY:

The Brand Creator

By Maxine Carter-Lome, publisher

hen we think about the brands we There, he analyzed and made recommendations
grew up with, no doubt we also on matters of diplomacy and security based on
Wremember something about their his knowledge of human behavior. His report,
advertising, whether it’s a jingle, their association which suggested applying the Gallup technique
with a favorite TV or radio show, their brand to fields of secret intelligence, was adopted by
mascot, a memorable slogan … that’s all thanks Eisenhower’s Psychological Warfare Board and
to the masters of Madison Avenue and the titan applied in Europe during the last year of the war.
on the block, David Ogilvy. After the war, in another life change, Ogilvy
David Mackenzie Ogilvy was born June 23, and his bride, Sophie Louise Blew Jones, bought
1911, in West Horsley, United Kingdom. His a farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and
father, Francis John Longley Ogilvy, was a lived among the Amish. The atmosphere of
middle-class stockbroker with aristocratic ties “serenity, abundance, and contentment” kept
who took a big hit in the Depression of the Ogilvy and his wife in Pennsylvania for several
mid-1920s. Yet, the family’s reduced financial years but eventually, he admitted his limitations
circumstances did not stop David from getting as a farmer and the couple moved to Manhattan
the best education money could buy as a scholar- for the next chapter of Ogilvy’s life.
ship recipient. At age 13, David received a
scholarship to Fettes College, in Edinburgh, and The Rise of Ogilvy & Mather
then in 1929 to Christ Church, Oxford. But Having worked as a chef, researcher, and
Ogilvy was restless and looking to move on. farmer, Ogilvy now started his own advertising
Ogilvy left Oxford for Paris in 1931 before agency with the backing of Mather and
completing his degree to become an apprentice Crowther, the London agency now being run by
chef in the Hotel Majestic. After a year, he A first edition of Ogilvy on Advertising. Signed his elder brother, Francis, which later acquired
returned to Scotland and started selling AGA copies can sell for between $800 and $1,800/ another London agency, S.H. Benson. The new
cooking stoves, door-to-door. His success at this agency in New York was called Ogilvy, Benson,
marked him out to his employer, who asked him and Mather.
to write an instruction manual, The Theory His entry into the company of giants
and Practice of Selling the AGA Cooker, for started with several iconic advertising
the other salesmen. Thirty years later, campaigns, including former First Lady
Fortune magazine editors called it the finest Eleanor Roosevelt in a commercial for
sales instruction manual ever written. Good Luck Margarine in 1959. In his
After seeing the manual, Ogilvy’s older autobiography, Ogilvy on Advertising, he
brother Francis Ogilvy showed it to his said it had been a mistake to persuade
bosses at the London advertising agency, her to do the ad – not because it was
Mather & Crowther, where he was work- undignified, but because he had grown to
ing. They offered the younger Ogilvy a realize that putting celebs in ads is a
position as an account executive and the mistake. Instead, he created fictitious
rest, as they say, is Madison Avenue history. celebrities and characters that have become

forever associated with the ad campaigns
Coming to America he created for his clients and their brand.
In 1938, Ogilvy convinced his bosses at “The man in the Hathaway shirt” with
Mather & Crowther to send him to his aristocratic eye patch, and the
America for a year, where he went to work introduction of the words “Uncola” and
for George Gallup’s Audience Research “Schweppervescence” to our lexicon, are
Institute in New Jersey. Ogilvy cites just two of the many memorable examples
Gallup as one of the major influences on of Ogilvy’s branding mastery, and why
his thinking, emphasizing meticulous in 1962, Time magazine called him
research methods and adherence to reality. “the most sought-after wizard in today’s
During World War II, Ogilvy was advertising industry.”
forced to divert his career intentions but
not his research skills when he went to
work for the British Intelligence Service at Ogilvy’s favorite car, the Rolls Royce,
the British embassy in Washington, D.C. with copy lauding its luxury features.

18 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles