Ogilvy, David Mackenzie

▪ 2000

      British advertising executive (b. June 23, 1911, West Horsley, Surrey, Eng.—d. July 21, 1999, Bonnes, France), was a creative genius and the cofounder of Ogilvy & Mather, one of the world's largest and most successful advertising firms. After flunking out of the University of Oxford and working for a time as an apprentice chef in Paris in the 1930s, he landed a job as an account executive at the British advertising agency of Mather & Crowther. His advertising career was interrupted by World War II, during which he served in British Intelligence and as a secretary at the British embassy in Washington, D.C. He returned to advertising in 1948, helping to form the agency of Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson & Mather with the financial support of his former employers. His practice of creating intriguing characters to symbolize products led to a number of memorable ad campaigns. In one famous example, he put a black eyepatch on a model to lend a sense of mystery to a series of ads for Hathaway shirts; another celebrated campaign was for Schweppes beverages and featured the bewhiskered Commander Whitehead. A talented copywriter, Ogilvy wrote lengthy copy for his ads, believing that it was easier to persuade consumers by providing them with information rather than simply trying to amuse them. “The consumer is not a moron; she is your wife. Try not to insult her intelligence,” he advised others in the advertising industry. In 1964 he merged his agency with Mather & Crowther to form Ogilvy & Mather; by the mid-1990s the agency had 272 offices in 64 countries. He published two influential books on advertising, Confessions of an Advertising Man (1963) and Ogilvy on Advertising (1983), and an autobiography, Blood, Brains and Beer (1978). He was appointed C.B.E. in 1967.

* * *