#82 David Ogilvy (Ogilvy on Advertising)

**David Senra** (0:00)
I want to tell you about a one time only limited event that I don't think you're going to want to miss. I am doing a live show with Patrick O'Shaughnessy from the Invest Like the Best podcast in New York City on October 19th. Patrick has interviewed over 300 of the world's best investors and founders for his podcast. I've read over 300 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs for my podcast. We'll be talking about what we learned from seven years of podcasting, sharing our favorite ideas and stories, and doing a live Q&A. There will also be special event-only swag. If you live in New York City, I think it's a no-brainer. But if not, I think it's a great excuse to fly in. I've already heard from a bunch of people that bought tickets, they're flying in from other cities. Some people are flying in from other countries. That's setting the bar really high, so I will have at least four shots of espresso or four energy drinks before or during the show, so we can make it a night that you'll never forget. If you're interested in attending this unique live event, I will leave a link down below. I highly recommend you get your tickets today, and I hope I get to see you in New York on October 19th. I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information. When I write an advertisement, I don't want you to tell me that you find it creative. I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product. In my Confessions of an Advertising Man published in 1963, I told the story of how Ogilvy and Mathur came into existence, and set forth the principles on which our early success had been based.
Our principles seemed to work.
But I am now so old that a French magazine lists me as the only survivor among a group of men who contributed to the Industrial Revolution, alongside Adam Smith, Edison, Karl Marx, Rockefeller, Ford, and Keynes.
Does old age disqualify me from writing about advertising in today's world? Or could it be that that perspective helps a man to separate the internal verities of advertising from its passing fads? Most of the advertising techniques which worked when I wrote Confessions of an Advertising Man still work today. Consumers still buy products whose advertising promises them value for money, beauty, nutrition, relief from suffering, social status, and so on, all over the world.
In saying this, I run the risk of being denounced by the idiots who hold that any advertising technique which had been in use for more than two years is ipso facto obsolete.
Okay, so that is from the introduction of the book that I read this week and the one I'm going to be talking to you about today, which is Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy. Alright, so let's jump into the book. This is a glimpse of his personality, and he explicitly tells us who this book is for. He focuses on advertising like he just said, like I don't look at it as an art form. I'm not trying to be creative for creative states. I'm trying to convey information so you buy a product, right? And that's why my agency will grow because I'm effective at doing this for my clients. And as their business grows, they spend more money with me, and therefore that rising tide lifts my boat. And then he talks about this, like I don't care about like, you know, what campaigns find favorite cocktail parties in New York and San Francisco. So he says, I come from myself with the reflection that I have sold more merchandise than all of them put together, meaning the people that just win awards. I am sometimes attacked for imposing rules. Nothing could be further from the truth. I hate rules. He's very much a misfit.
All I do is report on how consumers react to different stimuli. This is not a book for readers who think they already know all there is to know about advertising. It is for young hopefuls and veterans who are still in search of ways to improve their batting average at the cash register. I write only about aspects of advertising I know from my own experience. So he's right off the rip. He's telling us, listen, I'm not here to win awards. I'm not here to make my ads be even the most beautiful visual representations. I'm here to serve my clients in his entire business. We've been talking about Howard Stern. We've been talking about Henry Ford lately. And his whole theme when you read the two books, the two ones that he's written at least, and they're in the other books written about him is focus on service, service, service, service, service. In Henry Ford's opinion, there's no point in having a business that does not focus on service because that's literally why you exist. And in David Ogilvy's case, he feels the very same way. I'm here to service my clients. What they want me to do is help them sell more of their product. And so that's the prism into which I'm going to look at advertising. I'm only going to look at advertising on based on its effectiveness, which I find refreshing. So here's a little bit about brevity, performance, and lies. I ask you to forgive me for oversimplifying some complicated subjects and for the dogmatism of my style. And so what's that dogmatism? He says it's the dogmatism of brevity. We are both in a hurry. I love this guy. The first thing I have to say is that you may not realize the magnitude of difference between one advertisement and another.