handsomely enough to be well dressed. They were also known to work hard â often ridiculously so, until the early hours of the morning â hence all the talk of ulcers and heart disease in the profession. They fought stress with alcohol, giving rise to the âthree martini lunchâ. This actually existed, according to Phil Dusenberry: âTaking a break for lunch, particularly if you were with a client, wasnât a big deal in those days.â
One figure we might have seen strolling down Madison Avenue on his way to lunch â perhaps with a young colleague hanging onto his every word â was a lanky Englishman, dressed in tweeds for winter or in a lightweight suit brightened with a pocket square in summer. Good-looking, charming and (on the surface, at least) irrepressibly self-confident, David Ogilvy was one of the stars of the Manhattan advertising scene. And he was British.
A British advertising agency in New York
David Ogilvy played such a large part in the creation of his own myth that it is often hard to tell where the truth ended and the branding began. There are a few things we know for certain, however. He was born in 1911 in West Horsley, England and educated at Fettes College, Edinburgh â a school renowned for its âSpartan disciplinesâ, according to Ogilvy. Apparently destined to become a historian, he won a scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford â but by his own admission he âscrewed that upâ. The reasons for this are unclear. In his book Confessions of an Advertising Man (1963) he writes glibly that he was âtoo preoccupied to do any work, and was duly expelledâ. Later he revealed that he had two serious operations on his head, for double mastoids, which contributed to his lack of concentration (âDavid Ogilvy at 75â, Viewpoint , September/October 1986). In any event, what Ogilvy forever described as âthe great failure of my lifeâ helped to shape his paradoxical personality: that of the scholarly entrepreneur; the daydreaming pragmatist.
Having been a keen reader of Mark Twain as a schoolboy, Ogilvy was stricken with wanderlust. Although the eventual goal was America, his first destination was France, where he got a job in the kitchen of the Hotel Majestic in Paris. âI have always believed that if I could understand how Monsieur Pitard, the head chef, inspired such white-hot morale, I could apply the same kind of leadership to the management of my advertising agency,â he wrote later. He came to the conclusion that âno creative organization⦠will produce a great body of work unless it is led by a formidable individualâ.
Ogilvy would become that individual â but not for a while yet. In the meantime he was lured back to England to sell Aga cooking stoves, because the company needed somebody who could pitch to French chefs in London restaurants. Ogilvy maintained throughout his career that advertising was no more or less than a sophisticated form of selling, and closing a sale was something at which he turned out to be adept. His admiring boss asked him to write a sales manual for other Aga employees: it later became a standard text for aspiring sales people, eliciting admiration from Fortune magazine journalists some 30 years later. Ogilvyâs older brother, Francis, was an account executive at the advertising agency Mather & Crowther, where he showed the crisply written sales manual to management. Sure enough, David was duly asked to join the agency too.
With the combination of charm and chutzpah that was to aid his rise in advertising, in 1938 David convinced the agency to send him to New York to study transatlantic advertising techniques. The boy who had revelled in Huckleberry Finn was off to America at last. âWhen he saw the Manhattan skyline he wept for joy,â claims Stephen Fox in The Mirror Makers .
Needless to say, Ogilvy did not return home. Instead, he sought the advice of
One figure we might have seen strolling down Madison Avenue on his way to lunch â perhaps with a young colleague hanging onto his every word â was a lanky Englishman, dressed in tweeds for winter or in a lightweight suit brightened with a pocket square in summer. Good-looking, charming and (on the surface, at least) irrepressibly self-confident, David Ogilvy was one of the stars of the Manhattan advertising scene. And he was British.
A British advertising agency in New York
David Ogilvy played such a large part in the creation of his own myth that it is often hard to tell where the truth ended and the branding began. There are a few things we know for certain, however. He was born in 1911 in West Horsley, England and educated at Fettes College, Edinburgh â a school renowned for its âSpartan disciplinesâ, according to Ogilvy. Apparently destined to become a historian, he won a scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford â but by his own admission he âscrewed that upâ. The reasons for this are unclear. In his book Confessions of an Advertising Man (1963) he writes glibly that he was âtoo preoccupied to do any work, and was duly expelledâ. Later he revealed that he had two serious operations on his head, for double mastoids, which contributed to his lack of concentration (âDavid Ogilvy at 75â, Viewpoint , September/October 1986). In any event, what Ogilvy forever described as âthe great failure of my lifeâ helped to shape his paradoxical personality: that of the scholarly entrepreneur; the daydreaming pragmatist.
Having been a keen reader of Mark Twain as a schoolboy, Ogilvy was stricken with wanderlust. Although the eventual goal was America, his first destination was France, where he got a job in the kitchen of the Hotel Majestic in Paris. âI have always believed that if I could understand how Monsieur Pitard, the head chef, inspired such white-hot morale, I could apply the same kind of leadership to the management of my advertising agency,â he wrote later. He came to the conclusion that âno creative organization⦠will produce a great body of work unless it is led by a formidable individualâ.
Ogilvy would become that individual â but not for a while yet. In the meantime he was lured back to England to sell Aga cooking stoves, because the company needed somebody who could pitch to French chefs in London restaurants. Ogilvy maintained throughout his career that advertising was no more or less than a sophisticated form of selling, and closing a sale was something at which he turned out to be adept. His admiring boss asked him to write a sales manual for other Aga employees: it later became a standard text for aspiring sales people, eliciting admiration from Fortune magazine journalists some 30 years later. Ogilvyâs older brother, Francis, was an account executive at the advertising agency Mather & Crowther, where he showed the crisply written sales manual to management. Sure enough, David was duly asked to join the agency too.
With the combination of charm and chutzpah that was to aid his rise in advertising, in 1938 David convinced the agency to send him to New York to study transatlantic advertising techniques. The boy who had revelled in Huckleberry Finn was off to America at last. âWhen he saw the Manhattan skyline he wept for joy,â claims Stephen Fox in The Mirror Makers .
Needless to say, Ogilvy did not return home. Instead, he sought the advice of
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