The Unpublished David Ogilvy by Ogilvy David

Author:Ogilvy, David [Ogilvy, David]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Published: 2013-01-08T01:32:58.060977+00:00

never got around to it.

I myself have life insurance policies with

three companies. Not one of them has ever

written me a letter suggesting that I buy

more insurance from them. All they ever

send me is premium notices.

Bloody fools …

From an ad-lib talk to the Direct Mail

Advertising Association in Washington in

October 1965, after Ogilvy & Mather’s

five-page letter for Mercedes-Benz h

through the eyes of aQ6Rad won the

Gold Mail Box Award for the best direct

mail campaign of 1964:

I have owned a few motor cars in my

life … I have never received a selling

letter from one of the factories whose

cars I drive suggesting that maybe the

time had come for me to get a new one.

They simply don’t do it.

I’m here to predict that in the next five

years you are going to see the advertising

agencies – the good ones – grow up into

Direct Mail. You are going to see Direct

Mail emerge as a medium we agency

people use, and use professionally.

From “Ten Bees in My Bonnet,” a talk at

a dinner at Colby College in June 1966.

David was a Colby Trustee. Here are his

introductory remarks, and five of his ten

“bees”:

What I am going to say does not in any

way reflect the views of your Board of

Trustees. I speak only for myself.

I am not an alumnus of Colby – or indeed

of any other American college. I went to

Oxford, 3,500 miles away. This places me

at some disadvantage. If anyone wants to

say that I don’t know what I am talking

about, I can only plead that my relative

detachment helps me to see things through

an objective eye.

What I know about Colby and other

colleges derives from four sources:

First, from listening to the talk at meetings

of the Colby Board of Trustees during the

last four years.

Second, from reading a good deal about

education in general, and other colleges in

particular.

Third, from observing my son’s

experiences at the University of Virginia.

Fourth, from being married to a Barnard

undergraduate.

I have come to some general

conclusions, and this is my opportunity

to ventilate them. They are more than

conclusions – they are veritable bees

in my bonnet.

1. First, I agree with Professor Nathan

Glazer that “A very large part of what

students and teachers do in the best

colleges and universities is sheer

waste.”

I will now prove this.

Dr. Gallup tested a cross section of

college graduates of all ages, all over the

country. He found that 62 percent cannot

identify Immanuel Kant.

Two thirds cannot translate the word

sister into French or German or Spanish.

Less than half can name the Chief Justice

of the Supreme Court. Only half know that

elections for seats in the House of

Representatives are held every two years.

One third have not read a single book of

any kind during the last year.

If Dr. Gallup had confined his poll to

Colby graduates, instead of interviewing a cross section of all college graduates, the results might have been somewhat more

encouraging.

However, I am inclined to think that the

present system of college education, even

here at Colby, needs improvement …

HEADMASTER

When Dave McCall was Associate Copy

Chief at Ogilvy, Benson & Mather, he had

intelligence.erem dinner with David and

his teenage son, David Fairfield Ogilvy.

Much of the talk centered on the prep

school David’s son was going to and how,

if David were headmaster, he’d run things

there.

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