I’ve now read Ken Roman’s biography of David Ogilvy. (see my post of January 8). It’s a treat, especially if you were around the advertising game in his heyday, which I was.
Big, whomping personalities like Ogilvy can be intimidating even after they’re dead. Happily, Ken wasn’t cowed by the memories as he wrote. This is a high resolution, 12 megapixel portrait, warts and all. It brought to mind the adage my mother had framed and hanging in the kitchen that said “ A genius is someone who takes great pains – and gives them to other people” – It sounds like Ogilvy to a T.
Beyond its value as a biography it’s a faithful look at the ad business in the middle of the 20th century, when television was just emerging and “as advertised in LIFE” meant a product had arrived. Forget “Mad Men” – this book is a lot better picture of reality.
Ogilvy made his name, and a good start on his fortune, writing print advertising back when advertising was defined as “salesmanship in print”. (two great examples of his work shown). Words mattered. Print ads persuaded people to join Book of the Month Club, use Mum deodorant, gargle with Listerine, and bathe with Lux soap. The display cases in the lobby at NW Ayer held copies of the books its copywriters had published. Copywriters like Jack Rosebrook, James Webb Young, Bruce Barton, and George Gribben were legends.
Are you getting a feeling that this book pushed a lot of buttons for me? Yes, it did. At the same time, though, I wondered whether, with all Ogilvy’s rules for copywriters and advice for advertisers, it has relevance in world of laptops and Blackberrys? I believe it does – and I hadn’t imagined that.