The other day i wrote about Donny Deutsch’s book Often Wrong, Never in Doubt. Today I started flipping trough the pages written by another of advertising’s greats, David Ogilvy, in 1983. (*Interesting fact: Both Donny and his dad used to work for Ogilvy, and apparently Deutsch Sr. had a beef with David).
Anyway, the two books can really not be compared, but it’s striking how no-nonsense the Ogilvy book is, how warmly he talks about testing campaigns and readable the book is. This is truly the original planner/creative, and I must say I’m impressed.
And while I think that Ogilvy may be old-school and arguably would have difficulties developing an intuition for social media (a general difficulty for those with few friends who are active users of such media) and youth trends, he is a master of the psychology of gut feeling. David also writes:
“I run the risk of being denounced by the idiots who hold that any advertising technique which has been in use for more than two ears is ipso facto obsolete”
And I ask myself; have I been one of those idiots? Well – at least I’ve not been paying enough attention to the underlying thinking of people like Ogilvy or Bernbach. I’ve been the rebelling teenage kid, and I know from experience that it is an unavoidable phase in anything I set out to do. I’ve been a dogmatic futurist and exclusive believer of “new” psychology and new technology, but I (with the assistance of David) am starting to shift my stance. The true winners will be those with an understanding for what’s next, but also a firm grasp on the craftsmanship, the no-nonsense businessmanship, the devilish attention to detail of people like David Ogilvy. Not many people can combine Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (or rather David Ogilvy & Chris Anderson) within themselves, but if I have one mission in this career, making that fusion is it.
Wish me luck.
(Oh, and by the way, when reading I have a habit of marking pages that I find interesting. After flipping through the first ten pages of Ogilvy’s On Advertising, is this a good indication of how good I think this book is?)
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Yeah, it's a classic.
I started my career at O&M New York way back in 83.
Still find his simple ideas inspiring and I do think they (pretty much) apply today.