#89 David Ogilvy (Confessions of an Advertising Man)

**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.
My mother was a beautiful and eccentric Irish woman. She disinherited me on the ground that I was likely to acquire more money than was good for me without any help from her.
I could not disagree. At the age of nine, I was sent to board at an aristocratic school in Eastbourne. The headmaster wrote of me, he has a distinctly original mind, inclined to argue with his teachers and to try and convince them that he is right and the books are wrong. But this perhaps is further proof of his originality.
At the age of 13, I went to a Scottish school whose Spartan disciplines had been established by my great uncle.
I went to college at Oxford, but I was too preoccupied to do any work and was duly expelled.
That was in 1931, the bottom of the Depression. For the next 17 years, while my friends were establishing themselves as doctors, lawyers, civil servants, and politicians, I had ventured about the world, uncertain of purpose.
I was a chef in Paris, a door-to-door salesman, a social worker in the Edinburgh slums, an associate of Dr. Gallup in research for the motion picture industry, an assistant in British security coordination, and a farmer in Pennsylvania.
I had expected to become prime minister when I grew up. Instead, I finally became an advertising agent on Madison Avenue. The revenues of my 19 clients are now greater than the revenue of Her Majesty's government.
My father used to say of a product that it was very well spoken of in the advertisements.
I spend my life speaking well of products in advertisements.
By writing this book in the old fashioned first person singular, I have committed an offense against a convention of contemporary American manners.
But I think it artificial to write we when I'm confessing my sins and describing my adventures.
That is an excerpt from the book that I read this week and the one I'm going to talk to you about today, which is Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy. And before I jump into the rest of the book, I just want to let you know why I chose to cover this book this week. I had previously done, if you've listened to all the episodes I've done so far, you already know this, but on Founders Podcast Number 82, I went over what I learned from David's book, Ogilvy on Advertising, which is less biographical and more like explicit advice on how to improve your company's advertising. So if that subject interests you and you have not listened to that, I'd highly recommend listening to Founders Number 82 He does a little bit of that in this book as well, but this is more of like a narrative as opposed to the way that he organized the other book. They were also written about two decades apart. If I'm not mistaken, he wrote Ogilvy on Advertising like in the eighties, and the book I have in my hand was first published in 1963 But so I was obviously familiar with David Ogilvy, but the reason I'm doing it today is because the last week I did probably the hardest podcast I've ever done, which is I read 54 years of Warren Buffett's Shareholder Letters, and it's easily the longest book that I've ever read for this podcast, and the longest podcast. It's like over three hours long. But in several shareholder notes, so first of all, Warren Buffett calls David Ogilvy in the Shareholder Letters a genius.