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THE UNPUBLISHED DAVID OGILVY


DAVID OGILVY

4.14
472 ratings41 reviews
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Presents memos, letters, speeches, papers, lists, and quotes regarding the
author's successful career in advertising

GenresBusinessNonfictionBiographyWritingCommunicationLeadershipManagement

...more

178 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1987

Book details & editions

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37 people are currently reading
1,332 people want to read

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DAVID OGILVY

61 books303 followers
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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).
david ogilvy 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...
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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

4.14
472 ratings41 reviews
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews
Philipp
634 reviews192 followers
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November 12, 2017
Why do I have this book!?! I know nothing about advertising!

Surprisingly, it's not boring - I guess David Ogilvy is famous in the ad world
(Wikipedia describes him as the 'father of advertising'), this book collects
various speeches, memos and interviews contributed by his colleagues for Ogily's
birthday. Since the book is literally a birthday present it's very uncritical,
but there are still interesting points:

- I guess Ogilvy is directly responsible for those weird Coca-Cola TV ads. In
this world ads are not to sell a specific product, but to create an image of the
company in people's heads: 'Today, I have come to believe, with Gardner and
Levy, that every advertisement must be considered as a contribution to the
complex symbol which is the brand image.' or 'the kind of indestructible image
which is the only thing that can make your brand part of the fabric of American
life.'

- it's also interesting from a business/management/looking after your people
perspective. His agency often quit on clients for various reasons, often to
protect their own people, sometimes because he did not want his agency to become
associated with a bad product:



> We only had one office and about 18 clients and I dealt directly with all of
> them. Personal dislike made me resign many accounts. I didn’t like having to
> deal with the sonofabitch. Why should I? We pass this way only once. [...] I
> said I’ve come to resign your business. He asked why. I said because your
> Executive Vice President is a shit. And he’s behaving very badly. He’s
> treating your people atrociously and he’s treating my people atrociously. Now
> what he does to your people – that’s your business. But I’m not going to allow
> this man to go on demoralizing the people of Ogilvy & Mather. It’s something I
> won’t accept. So goodbye. [...] That’s why I resigned the Rolls-Royce account.
> They went through a very bad two-year period. I wrote to them one day and said
> – I put the heading “Lemons” on my letter (I don’t know if I stole that from
> the Volkswagen advertising) – I said that the last 600 cars you sent to the
> United States don’t work. And I will no longer be a party to recommending that
> people buy them. I resign.



Saying 'no' to something that doesn't work or where you don't want to be a part
of is one of the things I still have to learn (but I'm happy to see that the
term of someone being 'a shit' is not a recent invention)

They were one of the first to have an explicit company culture with rules and
standards with the usual stuff people are used to now. What's interesting to me
is that those rules always include that his employees should be good citizens
and be involved in their respective communities.

That's something I don't see in modern capitalism - big companies like Facebook
and Google explicitly keep their employees out of their respective communities
by offering free food and activities with the companies. The idea is to have
employees hang around as much as possible to interact with other employees and
come up with new ideas. The downside is that these employees are completely
disconnected from their (non-work) community since they cannot spend time in it,
they have ceased being citizens (and don't get me started on the work hours -
these people essentially work 10-11 hours a day while being paid for 8, they may
get paid well for those 8 hours but it erodes standards people have fought for
for more than 100 years)

I also will use these rules in all of my own work: 'We admire kindly people with
gentle manners who treat other people as human beings – particularly the people
who sell things to us. We abhor quarrelsome people. We abhor people who wage
paper warfare. We abhor buck passers, and people who don’t tell the truth. [...]
We admire people who practice delegation. The more you delegate, the more
responsibility will be loaded upon you.'
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advertising business-time non-fiction

...more

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Asra Ghouse
90 reviews63 followers
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November 15, 2013
The Unpublished David Ogilvy was published as a surprise gift for Ogilvy's 75th
birthday. Thank God for that! Every person associated with the creative arts
MUST read this book. It's a quick read with letters, notes, memos, speeches and
pictures of Ogilvy.

An interesting section is his speech on leadership. Ogilvy was keen on this
subject towards the later years of life. But, my favourite section was the
interview by his partner Joel Raphaelson. The creative genius of Ogilvy is
evident from the interview. Although he got old, his desire for learning and
doing never faded. His interest and curiosity kept him going. He always wanted
to 'do'. Indeed an inspiring interview.

I'm going to end this review now. Sometimes there's a lot to say and sometimes
it just does to keep it short. And, as Ogilvy always says, 'Keep it simple.'

In simple words - READ IT.
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must-reads non-fiction philosophical


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Ved Gupta
86 reviews26 followers
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October 20, 2020
Incredible words and speeches from the father of Modern advertising. Must read
for people who manage a few people under them directly. Most of the book is
useful for large section of people and some part of the book will appeal to only
those who work in creative industry.


2 likes
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Huyền Nguyễn
33 reviews1 follower
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March 25, 2019
Ogilvy - đanh đá, chăm chỉ và luôn đầy cảm hứng!
(4 sao vì đọc phải dịch như dở hơi).


1 like
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Benjamin Jozef de Leon
9 reviews6 followers
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September 22, 2013
I have never read a non-fiction book with so much gusto until this one. WOW!

I just gobbled his words like they were chocolates. :O


1 like
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Jeremy
124 reviews
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January 27, 2014
Unpublished David Ogilvy is a collection of Ogivly's writing compiled by his
colleagues. It has a lot of good info for anyone who promotes a business or
cause. Definitely a must read for marketers.

business psychology


1 like
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Celeste
504 reviews
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November 22, 2022
In another world I would have gotten the WPP Fellowship and ended up in
advertising. But in this world I went to payments and ended up in HBS.

Reading the words of the godfather of advertising made me think about the forks
in our life and the “what ifs”. I didn’t find his words terribly profound but
some bits stood up to me:

Don’t judge the value of higher education in terms of careermanship. Judge it
for what it is — a priceless opportunity to furnish your mind and enrich the
quality of your life.

I cannot play golf, tennis or bridge. I cannot, alas, ski or sail. I still ride
a bicycle. I spend several hours a day working with my gardeners, and several
hours at my desk. And I read a great deal.

Set exorbitant standards, and give your people hell when they don’t live up to
them. There is nothing so demoralising as a boss who tolerates second-rate work.

Don’t let your people fall into a rut. Keep leading them along new paths,
blazing new trails. Give them a sense of adventurous pioneering.

You have to endure the horrors of A levels and O levels. The masters have to
cram you full of facts, so that you can pass those odious examinations. This is
like cramming corn down the throat of a goose to enlarge his liver. It may
produce excellent pate de foie gras, but it does the goose no permanent good.

The mission of a great school is not to cram you with facts and give many boys a
distaste for learning that they will never read another book so long as they
live. The mission of a school is to inspire you with a taste for scholarship — a
taste which will last you all your life.

The man who was then President of our agency thought I was nuts to take your
account. He said it was too small. He told me, “Jesus Christ could perform a
miracle by feeding the multitude with three loaves and two small fishes, but you
ain’t Jesus Christ.” So I waited for our President to go on vacation, and then
signed up.

When the toy-buyer at Sears made a mistake which cost his company 10 million
bucks, I asked the head of Sears, “Are you going to fire him?” “Hell no,” he
replied, “I fire people who don’t make mistakes”.

Are we devoting too much time and money to salvaging our flops — and not enough
to exploiting our breakthroughs?

So little of research percolates down to the people on the firing line. It might
be a good idea to declare a five year moratorium on new research projects while
we analyse the huge volume of discoveries that is gathering dust on the shelves.

If you always hire people who are smaller than you are, you shall become a
company of dwarfs. If you hire people who are bigger than you are, we shall
become a company of giants.

Good leaders do not suffer from the crippling need to be universally loved; they
have the guts to make unpopular decisions — including to fire non-performers.
Gladstone once said that a great Prime Minister must be a good butcher.

Good leaders are decisive. They grasp nettles.

I shall always look back on the years I worked with him as some of the most
difficult and trying ones in my life. For all that I thank God that I was given
the opportunity of working alongside of such a man, and of having my eyes opened
to the fact that occasionally such supermen exist on this earth.

Megamergers are for megalomaniacs. The people who make megamergers are people
who want to be the head of the biggest goddamn agency. These mergers do nothing
for the people in the agency. They do nothing for their clients. And it remains
to be seen whether they do anything for stockholders. What they do good for is
the megalomaniacs who engineer them.
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Lone Wong
142 reviews22 followers
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July 18, 2017
I immersed myself thoroughly from the beginning of the book. It's not a
biography or memoirs of David Ogilvy. It's his aphorism about advertising. His
philosophy about business, leadership, management.

This is a book unlike other. It's a birthday present from his devoted family and
colleagues who collected more than twenty-five years of memos, letters,
speeches, notes and interviews written and spoken by David Ogilvy himself.

Every word that he spilled during his speeches, every sentence he wrote in his
notes and memos. Contain dozen of wisdom about showmanship, advertising, and
passion. In this book, the reader can be able to stand on his point of view as
it was like we look thru David Ogilvy's eye in his ingenious mind.

It's a short read, but contain so much of wisdom about entrepreneurship and
marketing.

As David Ogilvy says it: "Every advertisement must tell the whole sales story,
because the public does not read the advertisement in series. The copy must be
human and very simple, keyed right down to its market - a market in which
self-conscious artwork and fine language serve only to make buyers wary."

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business entrepreneurship


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Japhia
20 reviews1 follower
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December 29, 2017
Amazing book! This was the kind of inspiration I needed. David Ogilvy's
character is so eccentric yet so human. He is brilliant and principled, and
insightful book about him and many lessons that I could learn from him.


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Prashanth Baskaran
235 reviews2 followers
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October 11, 2020
A great book to get to know a lot about Corporate Culture, Advertising Industry
and David Ogilvy the man.

Simple collection of various memos, letters, excerpts from his speeches. Every
page is kind-of filled with usable insights.

non-fiction


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Enrique
317 reviews15 followers
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March 28, 2021
A few minutes of read but a lot of years to understand. Ogilvy summarize years
of tests, mistakes and failure to explain how Ogilvy succeed in a difficult
environment. You need to read an put in practice.


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Disha Mahbubani
4 reviews
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June 17, 2022
I decided to pick up this book to reignite my love for advertising. And damn,
genuinely made me wish I was alive at the same time David was.

Also made me sad to think how much Ogilvy as an agency has changed/deviated from
the vision of the modern advertising’s very own man.


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Dipra Lahiri
689 reviews46 followers
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February 28, 2017
Lots of pragmatic advice on management that is universally applicable across
industries.

2017 economics-business


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Mitch
28 reviews
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September 14, 2018
Outstanding quick read. Actual memos and thoughts of a really top-notch leader
and practitioner. Good for leaders in service organizations especially.


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Mikey Huzun
2 reviews2 followers
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July 5, 2018
Marvelous man. Marvelous read.


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Christian Faller
66 reviews2 followers
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September 3, 2018
Only got really interesting towards the second half of the book, but there it
picked up quite good and revealed some nuggets.


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Росен Рашков
96 reviews13 followers
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July 29, 2019
Поглед към философията на Дейвид Огилви в поредица от негови писма, статии и
речи.


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Deena
132 reviews1 follower
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July 17, 2020
This book was an easy whimsical book showing how quirky ogilvy could be but also
very practical and clear and honest in his writing. Also witty and whimsical.
Easy to read.


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Sandra Vu
14 reviews4 followers
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November 3, 2020
gem


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Michael Harvey
14 reviews
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January 2, 2021
Fun recollections by one of the greatest ad man in recent times. Not all useful
or business nuggets, but enjoyable.


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Bohdan
154 reviews6 followers
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February 7, 2021
Все уже написано до нас. Но хотелось бы больше


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Rex
89 reviews3 followers
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May 25, 2021
Charming, hilarious; and there are philosophies you can't help but write down,
and try internalize. One of the best business books I have ever read.

email-marketing favourites


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Daniel Stoev
26 reviews
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September 5, 2022
Тука звездите са 5 по 5 на квадрат и тн... просто е хубаво да се прочете !


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wyclif
168 reviews
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January 30, 2023
An essential book for anyone interested in advertising and human nature.

business writing


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Chiara Cokieng
126 reviews31 followers
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May 3, 2015
This is a short (I read most of it on a one-hour flight from Virac to Manila)
collection of excerpts from Ogilvy's private and public memos, letters,
speeches, and interviews. Full of useful and insightful gems, Ogilvy felt real
to me, like a mentor, not an author. Really enjoyed the book's format.

A recurring emphasis is old-fashioned hard work -- "Men die of boredom,
psychological conflict, and disease. They never die of hard work." -- which I
found very insightful, since it's so unfashionable today.

Also, it was enlightening to read how his opinion on advertising evolved (from
Claude Hopkin's emphasis on each advertisement earning a profit today towards
each campaign being a building block of the long-term and complex thing that is
the 'brand').
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Prateek Keshari
42 reviews9 followers
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January 31, 2016
David loved lists. Here's him on the qualification he looked for in leaders:

1. High standards of personal ethics.
2. Big people, without prettiness.
3. Guts under pressure, resilience in defeat.
4. Brilliant brains – not safe plodders. 5. A capacity for hard work and
midnight oil.
6. Charisma – charm and persuasiveness.
7. A streak of unorthodoxy – creative innovators.
8. The courage to make tough decisions.
9. Inspiring enthusiasts – with thrust and gusto.

This book is a great insight into the mind of the original Mad Man. His letters,
speeches and anecdotes are fun to read. Definitely recommended to people who
work in Marketing & Advertising or have an interest.

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favorites non-fiction


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Shane Gillard
1 review
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July 19, 2016
When I opened this book I didn't expect it to be such a collection of sage
advice that would stick with me the way it did.

If you're looking for the more personable side to David Ogilvy, this book does
it justice. It contains the insights into his work and personal life that are
difficult to portray in a typical biography.

There's one particular thing I agree with him on, you'll never get better at
writing unless you practice it every day.
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Max Williamson
10 reviews1 follower
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April 16, 2013
Ogilvy is the finest writer of the 20th Century. He achieved this accolade
without writing a novel or living in penury, which, as anyone will tell you, can
be a real arse ache.

It's all so refreshing...it's all so Ogilvy...it's all so...'David'.

(No novelists were named in the Top 5. Ogilvy was followed by a former British
Prime Minister, two journalists and a astronomer)
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Vassilena
276 reviews92 followers
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December 29, 2014
Книжката е доста интересна и поднася много приятен поглед към един от
най-интересните рекламисти в историята на този бранш. Огилви е точно такъв,
какъвто си го представях - интересен, харизматичен, с любопитни истории и високо
самочувствие (съвсем с покритие, но по онзи tongue in cheek начин, характерен за
шотландците). Приятно е да се надникне в записките, думите и ума на такъв човек.

bio marketing


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Rudi Middleton
1 review1 follower
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August 8, 2013
Stumbled across a range of books by, or about David Ogilvy but for what point?
All I can say is, he's inspiring me today and that's testament to his thinking,
writing, passion and drive. Read this book in hours!


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