*A Book Review*

Confessions of an Advertising Man

By David Ogilvy

by Michael C. Gray

October 4, 2006

Confessions of an Advertising Man is included on most "required reading" lists of advertising

classics, and has just come back in print.

David Ogilvy is one of the role models of advertising.

A Scotsman, he was expelled from Oxford in 1931. Then he went through a succession of
careers – a chef in Paris, a door-to-door salesman, a social worker in the Edinburgh slums, a
research associate of Dr. Gallup for the motion picture industry, an assistant to Sir William
Stephenson in British Security Co-ordination, and a farmer in Pennsylvania.

Then he founded Ogilvy, Benson & Mather and built it in short order into one of the largest
and most respected advertising agencies in the United States.

Confessions of an Advertising Man is the "little red book" of advertising, containing distilled
wisdom of years of research, testing and experience.

According to David Ogilvy, new recruits for the agency went through a training program
consisting of a "magic lantern" (projected photo slide) show of the basic principles and
practices of the agency. Those who weren’t enthusiastically in agreement with the training
were invited to leave. The information from those photo slides has been incorporated into this
book.

Ogilvy’s philosophy was, "once a salesman, always a salesman." Advertising that doesn’t sell
a product or service is worthless. He avoided having company ads submitted for artistic
awards. Winning one would be an embarrassment.

He was an able copywriter, and some of his ads became classics. (See reprints in his other
book, Ogilvy On Advertising.) Two of his famous headlines were "At 60 miles an hour the
loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock" and "The man in the
Hathaway shirt".

Ogilvy also emphasized the importance of research in creating effective ads. He felt his
experience working with Gallup contributed as much to his success as his selling experience.

Since Ogilvy’s goal was for the agency’s advertising to be effective at selling, he admired
and studied direct response advertisers, who test and measure everything and whose
companies live or die based on the effectiveness of their ads.
Ogilvy discusses every aspect of the advertising business as it was in 1963 – How to Manage
an Agency, How to Get and Keep Clients, How to Build Great Campaigns, How to Write
Potent Copy, How to Make Good Television Commercials, How to Work Your Way to the
Top. If you don’t care about the other topics, you should definitely read How to Be a Good
Client. (Leave our stuff alone!)

David Ogilvy infused this book with his warm character, showing the gentle humor of a true
English gentleman. He passed away in 1999 at age 88, and is greatly missed.

Quick! Before it goes back out of print! Get your copy of Confessions of an Advertising
Man! Buy it at Powell's independent bookstore here: Confessions of an Advertising Man.

For our new reviews of business and self-improvement books, subscribe to our
newsletter, Michael Gray, CPA's Tax & Business Insight!

Name the author of - Ogilvy on Advertising? What does the book

highlight?
Ogilvy on Advertising is an exceptional book on branding & advertising by David Ogilvy. This book is a candid and
indispensable primer on all aspects of advertising with over 223 photos from

Posted in Books & Authors Anonymously at 10:25 PM on January 01, 2009

Tags author, ogilvy, advertising, book, highlight

In 1997, Ogilvys autobiography was released under the title An

Autobiography. same book was released earlier in 1978 under a
different title. What was tat it?
Blood, Brains and Beer: The Autobiography of David Ogilvy 1978 provided the personal details of Ogilvys life....Hi
Maverick, good to see you posting some interesting questions. Well David MacKenzie Ogilvy, popularly known as Ogilvy
originally released his autobiography in 1978 with the title "Blood, Brains and Beer: The Autobiography of David Ogilvy."

Posted in Books & Authors by MaverickMonk at 9:31 PM on February 11, 2008

Tags autobiography

Who did Clementine Ogilvy Hozier marry in 1908?

Posted in Others by ami3 at 8:59 PM on May 18, 2007
Tags clementine, ogilvy, hozier, marry
Anna Karenina 1985 film..tell me something about cast?
CastThis 1985 TV movie version starred:Jacqueline Bisset as Anna Karenina Christopher Reeve as Count Vronsky Paul
Scofield Ian Ogilvy Anna Massey Joanna David Judi Bowker Valerie Lush Judy Campbell

Posted in Movies by sheela aleeh at 4:16 PM on December 31, 2008

Tags anna, karenina, cast

Which is the best network marketing company in India?

Top 10 Marketing Companies of India1.Hindustan Lever Network2.Tata Mc Graw Hill3.Proctor and
Gamble4.Godrej5.Ogilvy & Mather6.Maruti Udyog Ltd7.ITC Limited8.Videocon9.Tat a International10.Essar

Posted in Marketing & Advertising Anonymously at 6:15 PM on December 05, 2008

Tags best, network, marketing, company, india

Can anyone tell me what Investment is? Why should one invest?
to Ogilvys Alex Biel and Millward Brown interaction surveys. All show that, if we cut marketing during such times, the
impact is damaging and it can take you longer to get back to where you were. Of course

Posted in Personal Finance & Tax by Dev Raj at 12:29 AM on October 17, 2008
Tags investment, invest

I want to do photography job in any advertising company like product,

modeling etc. how do i get in touch with them? Please let me know
how I connect them?
Kolkata 700019. Tel:91-033-2289 8361;Fax: 91-033-2247 7545;Ogilvy & Mather Pvt LtdMotijug House, 1, Auckland
PlaceKolkata 700 017 Phone : 91-33-2283 1684 - 87 Fax : 91-33-2283 1683Rediffusion-DY&R21/1A/3

Posted in Kolkata by bubu at 3:44 AM on June 15, 2008

Tags photography, advertising, company, modeling, touch, them, please, know, how, connect, them

Can a small hungry and v smart gurgaon based PR company please

contact me!
owns ad agencies like O&M, JWT,CONTRACT etc.Another agency which you can think about is Perfect Relations which
has fairly decent client&232;le. Ogilvy PR is also a good bet considering the fact

Posted in Gurgaon by Aneesha at 6:18 PM on March 06, 2008

Tags pr

I am a Hindi translator in govt. office at Delhi and want to do extra work

of Hindi translation, any one can guide me where from I can get the
same.
of them are Draft FCB Ulka, Grey worldwide, Lowe, Ogilvy and Mather, JWT J Walter Thompson, Percept H etc. Try
getting in touch with the studio or creative head there.Good luck...Go to the Parlliament Housde

Posted in Books & Authors by Sunil at 3:40 AM on February 27, 2008

Tags
What is Leaderboard?
golfers are using to increase their power and perfect their swings on the PGA Tour. Now you can use the exact equipment
that Stuart Appleby, Adam Scott, Geoff Ogilvy, Michael Campbell, Mike Weir Robert

Posted in Computers & Technology by Sam at 8:28 AM on February 14, 2008

Tags leaderboard

Give me the phone numbers of some ad making agencies operate in

Kolkata?
1. J Walter Thompson - 2247 8361, 2. Ogilvy & Mather Pvt Ltd - 2247 3406, 3. Rediffusion-DY&R - 2240 0328, 4. Leo
Burnett - 22801022

Posted in Kolkata by sidsaxena at 11:25 PM on December 17, 2007

Tags

what is the best way to increase your confidence level?

abrest of the knowledge level.try to be more informative in your field.Read books and talk to intellectuals to acquire good
knowledge which will boost your confidence...Advertising Guru David Ogilvy once

David MacKenzie Ogilvy, CBE (June 23, 1911–July 21, 1999), was a notable advertising
executive. He has often been called "The Father of Advertising." In 1962, Time called him
"the most sought-after wizard in today's advertising industry." [1] He was known for a career
of expanding the bounds of both creativity and morality.
Contents
[hide]

• 1 Early life (1911–1938)

• 2 When Ogilvy "tasted blood"
• 3 At Gallup (1938–1948)
• 4 The Ogilvy & Mather years (1949–
1973)
• 5 Life with WPP and afterwards (1989–
1999)
• 6 Works
• 7 Notes
• 8 References
• 9 Further reading

• 10 External links

[edit] Early life (1911–1938)

David Mackenzie Ogilvy was born on June 23, 1911 at West Horsley, Surrey in England. His
father was a Gaelic-speaking Highlander from Scotland who was a classics scholar and
financial broker, his mother was Irish. Ogilvy attended St Cyprian's School, Eastbourne, on
reduced fees because of his father's straitened circumstances and won a scholarship at 13 to
Fettes College, in Edinburgh. In 1929, he again won a scholarship, this time in History to
Christ Church, Oxford.

Without the scholarships he would have been unable to attend Fettes or Oxford University
because his father's business was badly hit by the depression of the mid-twenties. But his
studies were not successful and he left Oxford for Paris in 1931 where he became an
apprentice chef in the Majestic Hotel. After a year there, he returned to Scotland and started
selling Aga cooking stoves door-to-door. His success at this marked him out to his employer,
who asked him to write an instruction manual, The Theory and Practice of Selling the AGA
cooker, for the other salesmen. Thirty years later this manual was still read by Fortune
magazine editors. They called it the finest sales instruction manual ever written. His older
brother Francis Ogilvy, who was working for the London advertising agency Mather &
Crowther, showed this manual to the agency management, who offered Ogilvy a position as
an account executive. In 1938 he persuaded the agency to send him to the United States for a
year.

[edit] When Ogilvy "tasted blood"

After just a few months in advertising, Ogilvy took the discipline in a whole new direction. A
man walked into Ogilvy's London agency wanting to advertise the opening of his hotel. Since
he had just $500 he was turned to the novice - Ogilvy. Ogilvy bought $500 worth of
postcards and sent invitations to everybody he found in the local telephone directory. The
hotel opened with a full house. "I had tasted blood", says Ogilvy in his Confessions. This is
also where he came to know direct advertising, his "Secret Weapon" as he says in Ogilvy on
Advertising.
[edit] At Gallup (1938–1948)

In 1938, Ogilvy emigrated to the United States, where he went to work for George Gallup's
Audience Research Institute in New Jersey. Ogilvy cites Gallup as one of the major
influences on his thinking, emphasizing meticulous research methods and adherence to
reality.

During World War II, Ogilvy worked for the British Intelligence Service at the Embassy in
Washington. There he analyzed and made recommendations on matters of diplomacy and
security. According to a biography[2] produced by Ogilvy & Mather, "he extrapolated his
knowledge of human behavior from consumerism to nationalism in a report which suggested
'applying the Gallup technique to fields of secret intelligence.'" Eisenhower’s Psychological
Warfare Board picked up the report and successfully put Ogilvy’s suggestions to work in
Europe during the last year of the war.

After the war, Ogilvy bought a farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and lived among the
Amish. The atmosphere of "serenity, abundance, and contentment" kept Ogilvy and his wife
in Pennsylvania for several years, but eventually he admitted his limitations as a farmer and
moved to New York.

[edit] The Ogilvy & Mather years (1949–1973)

After working as a chef, researcher and farmer, Ogilvy started his agency with the backing of
the London agency which was at that time being run by his elder brother Francis, Mather and
Crowther, later acquiring another London agency S H.Benson. The agency was called
Ogilvy, Benson and Mather. Ogilvy had just $6000 in his account when he started the
agency. He writes in Confessions of an Advertising Man that initially he struggled to get
clients. Ogilvy also admitted (referring to the pioneer of British advertising Bobby Bevan and
the Chairman of Benson) "I was in awe of him but Bevan never took notice of me!"[3]

Ogilvy & Mather was built on David Ogilvy's principles, in particular, that the function of
advertising is to sell, and that successful advertising for any product is based on information
about its consumer.

His entry into the company of giants started with several iconic campaigns:

"The man in the Hathaway shirt" with his aristocratic eye patch.

"The man from Schweppes is here" introduced Commander Whitehead, the elegant bearded
Brit, bringing Schweppes (and "Schweppervesence") to the U.S.

A famous headline in the car business – "At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new
Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock".

"Pablo Casals is coming home – to Puerto Rico". Ogilvy said this campaign, which helped
change the image of a country, was his proudest achievement.

One of his greatest successes was "Only Dove is one-quarter moisturizing cream". This
campaign helped Dove become the top selling soap in the US.
He believed that the best way to get new clients was to do notable work for existing clients.
Success of his early campaigns helped him to get big clients like Rolls-Royce and Shell. New
clients followed, and the company grew quickly.

In 1973 Ogilvy retired as Chairman of Ogilvy & Mather and moved to Touffou, his estate in
France. While no longer involved in day-to-day operations of the agency, he stayed in touch
with the company. His correspondence so dramatically increased the volume of mail handled
in the nearby town of Bonnes that the post office was reclassified at a higher status and the
postmaster's salary raised.

Ogilvy & Mather linked with H.H.D Europe in 1972.

[edit] Life with WPP and afterwards (1989–1999)

Ogilvy came out of retirement in the 1980s to serve as chairman of Ogilvy, Benson & Mather
in India. He also spent a year acting as temporary chairman of the agency’s German office,
commuting weekly between Touffou and Frankfurt. He visited branches of the company
around the world, and continued to represent Ogilvy & Mather at gatherings of clients and
business audiences.

In 1989 The Ogilvy Group was bought by WPP Group, a British parent company, for
US$864 million in a hostile takeover made possible by the fact that the company group had
made an IPO as the first company in marketing to do so.

During the takeover procedures, Sir Martin Sorrell, the founder of WPP who already had a
tarnished reputation in the advertising industry following a similar successful takeover of J
Walter Thompson, was described by Ogilvy as an "odious little shit" and he promised to
never work again.

However, two events followed simultaneously: WPP became the largest marketing
communications firm in the world, and David Ogilvy was named the company's non-
executive chairman (a position he held for three years) and eventually became a fan of
Sorrell. A letter of apology from Ogilvy still adorns Sorrell's office, which is said to be the
only apology David Ogilvy has ever offered in any form during his adult life. Only a year
after his derogatory comments about Sorrell, he was quoted as saying, 'When he tried to take
over our company I would liked to have killed him. But it was not legal. I wish I had known
him 40 years ago. I like him enormously now.'

At age 75, Ogilvy was asked if anything he'd always wanted had somehow eluded him. His
reply: "Knighthood. And a big family - ten children." (His only child, David Fairfield Ogilvy,
was born during his first marriage, to Melinda Street. That marriage ended in divorce (1955)
as did a second marriage to Anne Cabot. Ogilvy married Herta Lans in France in 1973.)

He didn’t achieve knighthood, but he was made a Commander of the Order of British Empire
(CBE) in 1967. He was elected to the US Advertising Hall of Fame in 1977 and to France's
"Order of Arts and Letters" in 1990. He chaired the Public Participation Committee for
Lincoln Center. He was appointed Chairman of the United Negro College Fund in 1968, and
trustee on the Executive Council of the World Wildlife Fund in 1975.

Mr. Ogilvy was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1979.
David Ogilvy died on July 21, 1999 at his home, the Chateau de Touffou, in Bonnes, France.
Ogilvy remains one of the most famous names in advertising and one of the dominant
thinkers (Raymond Rubicam, Leo Burnett, William Bernbach, Ted Bates) who shaped the
business after the 1920s.

[edit] Works
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help
improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced
material may be challenged and removed. (October 2009)

His book Ogilvy on Advertising is a commentary on advertising, and not all the ads shown in
the book are his. In early 2004, Adweek magazine asked people in the business "Which
individuals - alive or dead - made you consider pursuing a career in advertising?" Ogilvy
topped the list. And the same result came when students of advertising were surveyed. His
best-selling book Confessions of an Advertising Man (ISBN 1-904915-01-9) is one of the
most popular and famous books on advertising.

Ogilvy’s advertising mantra followed these four basic principles.

• Research: Coming, as he did, from a background in research, he never

underestimated its importance in advertising. In fact, in 1952, when he
opened his own agency, he billed himself as Research Director.
• Professional discipline: "I prefer the discipline of knowledge to the anarchy
of ignorance." He codified knowledge into slide and film presentations he
called Magic Lanterns. He also instituted several training programs for
young advertising professionals.
• Creative brilliance: A strong emphasis on the "BIG IDEA."
• Results for clients: "In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a
creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create."

[edit] Notes
1. ^ Time Magazine cover story, October 12, 1962
2. ^ www.ogilvy.com/history/media/biography.pdf
3. ^ http://www.rediff.com/business/1999/jul/26ogilvy.htm - Former Ogilvy
and Mather (India) CEO Mani Ayer in a salute to David Ogilvy. It seems
likely that Ogilvy met his future boss, Bobby Bevan in Washington during
the War as the latter was working there with the Chief of Naval
Information

[edit] References
1. Ogilvy, D. (1983), Ogilvy on Advertising, John Wiley and Sons, Toronto,
1983 ISBN 0-517-55075-X (and Pan Books, London, 1983 ISBN 0-330-
26985-2).
2. Ogilvy, D. (1985), Confessions of an Advertising Man, Atheneum, Revised
edition, 1988, ISBN 0-689-70800-9
3. Terry, Dan'l (1994), "David Ogilvy" in The Ad Men & Women, Edd
Applegate, ed., Greenwood, Westport, CT, 1994 ISBN 0-313-27801-6
4. Roman, Kenneth (2009) 'The King of Madison Avenue'. Palgrave
Macmillan. Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG21 6XS, England
[edit] Further reading
• Conant, Jennet The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in
Wartime Washington (Simon and Schuster, 2008)

The views of an advertising genius

One of the greatest advertising geniuses of the 20th century was David Ogilvy.

Although he was the head of a Madison Avenue advertising agency, he sided firmly with direct advertising over
creative advertising.

Here is an excerpt from a speech he gave to advertising people in Paris where he laid out the difference between
the two approaches and why, in his opinion, direct advertising is the more effective form:.

“There is a yawning chasm between you generalists and we directs. We directs belong to a different world. Your
gods are not our gods.

“You generalists pride yourselves on being creative – whatever that awful word means. You cultivate the
mystique of creativity. Some of you are pretentious poseurs. You are the glamour boys and girls of the
advertising community. You regard advertising as an art form – and expect your clients to finance expressions of
your genius. We directs do not regard advertising as an art form. Our clients don’t give a damn whether we win
awards at Cannes. They pay us to sell their products. Nothing else.

“You must be the most seductive salesmen in the world if you can persuade hard headed clients to pay for your
kind of advertising. When sales go up, you claim credit for it. When sales go down, you blame the product. We in
direct response know exactly to the penny how many products we sell with each of our advertisements. Your
favourite music is the applause of your fellow art directors and copywriters. Our favourite music is the ring of the
cash register.

You generalists use short copy. We use long copy. Experience has taught us that short copy doesn’t sell. In our
headlines, we promise the consumer a benefit. You generalists don’t think it is creative.

You have never had to live with the discipline of knowing the results of your advertising. We pack our
advertisements and letters with information about the product. We have found out we have to – if we want to sell
anything.”

If you want to learn more about David Ogilvy, I'd recommend his book "Ogilvy on Advertising".

Best wishes

Steve Gibson
BACK TO SITE

David Mackenzie Ogilvy was born in West Horsley, England, on June 23, 1911. He was
educated at Fettes College in Edinburgh and at Christ Church, Oxford (although he didn't
graduate).
 After Oxford, Ogilvy went to Paris, where he worked in the kitchen
of the Hotel Majestic. He learned discipline, management - and when to move on: "If I stayed at
the Majestic I would have faced years of slave wages, fiendish pressure, and perpetual
exhaustion." He returned to England to sell cooking stoves, door-to-door.

Ogilvy's career with Aga Cookers was astonishing. He sold stoves to nuns, drunkards, and
everyone in between. In 1935 he wrote a guide for Aga salesmen (Fortune magazine called it
"probably the best sales manual ever written"). Among its suggestions, "The more prospects you
talk to, the more sales you expose yourself to, the more orders you will get. But never mistake
quantity of calls for quality of salesmanship."

In 1938, Ogilvy emigrated to the United States, where he went to work for George Gallup's
Audience Research Institute in New Jersey. Ogilvy cites Gallup as one of the major influences on
his thinking, emphasizing meticulous research methods and adherence to reality.

During World War II, Ogilvy worked with the Intelligence Service at the British Embassy in
Washington. There he wrote enormously, analyzing and making recommendations on matters of
diplomacy and security. He extrapolated his knowledge of human behavior from consumerism to
nationalism in a report which suggested "applying the Gallup technique to fields of secret
intelligence."

Eisenhower's Psychological Warfare Board picked up the report and successfully put Ogilvy's
suggestions to work in Europe during the last year of the war.

After the war, Ogilvy bought a farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and lived among the
Amish. The atmosphere of "serenity, abundance, and contentment" kept Ogilvy and his wife in
Pennsylvania for several years, but eventually he admitted his limitations as a farmer and moved
to New York.
In 1948, he founded the New York-based ad agency Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson & Mather (which
eventually became Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide), with the financial backing of London agency
Mather & Crowther. He had never written an advertisement in his life.

Thirty-three years later, he sent the following memo to one of his partners:

Will Any Agency Hire This Man?

He is 38, and unemployed. He dropped out of college.

He has been a cook, a salesman, a diplomatist and a farmer.
He knows nothing about marketing and had never written any copy.
He professes to be interested in advertising as a career (at the age of 38!) and is ready to go to
work for $5,000 a year.

I doubt if any American agency will hire him.

However, a London agency did hire him. Three years later he became the most famous
copywriter in the world, and in due course built the tenth biggest agency in the world.

The moral: it sometimes pays an agency to be imaginative and unorthodox in hiring.

In his agency's first twenty years, Ogilvy won assignments from Lever Brothers, General Foods
and American Express. Shell gave him their entire account in North America. Sears hired him for
their first national advertising campaign.

"I doubt whether any copywriter has ever had so many winners in such a short period of time," he
wrote in his autobiography. "They made Ogilvy & Mather so hot that getting clients was like
shooting fish in a barrel."

In 1965, Ogilvy merged the agency with Mather & Crowther, his London backers, to form a new
international company. One year later the company went public - one of the first advertising firms
to do so. Soon Ogilvy & Mather had expanded around the world and was firmly in place as one
of the top agencies in all regions.
In 1973 Ogilvy retired as Chairman of Ogilvy & Mather and moved to Touffou, his estate in
France. While no longer involved in day-to-day operations of the agency, he stayed in touch with
the company. Indeed, his correspondence so dramatically increased the volume of mail handled
in the nearby town of Bonnes that the post office was reclassified at a higher status and the
postmaster's salary raised.

Ogilvy came out of retirement in the 1980s to serve as chairman of Ogilvy & Mather in India. He
also spent a year acting as temporary chairman of the agency's German office, commuting daily
between Touffou and Frankfurt.

He visited branches of the company around the world, and continued to represent Ogilvy &
Mather at gatherings of clients and business audiences.

When, in 1989, the Ogilvy Group was bought by WPP, two events occurred simultaneously:
WPP became the largest marketing communications firm in the world, and David Ogilvy was
named the company's non-executive chairman (a position he held for three years).

At age 75, Ogilvy was asked if anything he'd always wanted had
somehow eluded him. His reply, "Knighthood. And a big family - ten children." (His only child,
David Fairfield Ogilvy, was born during his first marriage, to Melinda Street. That marriage ended
in divorce (1955) as did a second marriage to Anne Cabot. Ogilvy married Herta Lans in France
in 1973.)

He didn't achieve knighthood, but he was made a commander of the British Empire in 1967. He
was elected to the US Advertising Hall of Fame in 1977 and to France's "Order of Arts and
Letters" in 1990. He chaired the Public Participation Committee for Lincoln Center. He was
appointed Chairman of the United Negro College Fund in 1968, and trustee on the Executive
Council of the World Wildlife Fund in 1975.

David Ogilvy died on July 21, 1999 at his home in Touffou, France.

Ogilvy remains one of the most famous names in advertising and one of the handful of thinkers
(Raymond Rubicam, Leo Burnett, William Bernbach, Ted Bates) who shaped the business after
the 1920s.

If you only read one page in Confessions of an Advertising Man then make sure it’s page 86;
there you’ll find Ogilvy’s Rule 11 on being a good client: “Test Everthing”.

Of course, all of Chapter Four on “How to Be a Good Client” is written for the owner of a
business that can afford an advertising agency. If you are a small business owner like most of
us, you certainly can’t afford a big-time agency and probably can’t hire even a small one.
However, you will routinely contract with vendors of all types; especially those that help
market your small business. You may have to alter the nouns a bit to fit your situation as you
read through Chapter Four, but you’ll soon see several key ideas that you can turn to your
advantage as you market your small business.

Chapter Four contains two lists which are loosely titled;

• Fifteen Rules to Obey in Dealing with an Agency

• Ten Questions to ask Before you Fire your Agency

Chapter Five (“How to Build Great Campaigns”) and Six (“How to Write Potent Copy”) are
particularly valuable. This section is really the marketing “meat” of the book, and here you
will find lists of suggestions pertinent to each chapter’s title, backed up by real-life examples.
On page 96 of Chapter Five you’ll find the famous: “The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your
wife” quote.

You should copy all the ten pages that are Chapter Six, highlight as suits your needs, and
rearrange them into a little “copywriting bible” you can tote with you. Yes, Chapter Six is
that important. It is also here in Chapter Six that you’ll find good relevant references to other
copywriters and marketers Ogilvy admires such as Claude Hopkins and Rudolph Flesch.

Four decades after it was first published Confessions of an Advertising Man is still a classic
for the small business owner and a resource that should definitely sit on your marketing shelf.

Remember: Brand (who you are) + Package (your Face to the Customer) + People (customers
and employees) = Marketing Success.