Founders - #189 David Ogilvy (The book I've given as a gift the most)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Will any agency hire this man? He's 38 and unemployed. He dropped out of college. He's been a cook, a salesman, a diplomat, and a farmer. He knows nothing about marketing. He has never written any copy. He professes to be interested in advertising his career 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 10th biggest agency in the world. The moral? It sometimes pays an agency to be imaginative and unorthodox in hiring.

Starting point is 00:00:42 This is a book unlike any other. It is a career's worth of public and private communications, memos, letters, speeches, notes, and interviews from the father of advertising, David Ogilvie. First collected more than 25 years ago as a birthday present from his devoted family and colleagues, it provides an entertaining and incisive look at leadership, management, and creativity. That was from the back cover of the book that I'm going to talk to you about today, which is the unpublished David Ogilvie, written by David Ogilvie, but put together by his friends and colleagues. And I'll go into more of that in a minute. So just a few things before I jump into

Starting point is 00:01:19 the book. One, this is a very old book. It was actually published for the first time in 1987. Two, David Ogilvie is a personal hero of mine. He's one of my favorite people I've ever discovered. There's a lot of traits that he has that I wish to emulate in my own life. And you'll see some of that if this is your first introduction to Ogilvie and the way he thinks. Warren Buffett, if you read his shareholder letters, he calls David Ogilvie a genius. And this is the fourth book I've read on him. And I think that Warren is absolutely correct. If you want to learn more, and you haven't listened to the other episodes I've done,

Starting point is 00:01:50 let me just listen for you. Number 82 is Ogilvy on advertising. That's a book that he wrote towards the end of his career. It's a beautiful book full of pictures and ads. And he kind of summarizes his career in advertising and what he feels is the principles. So that's number 82. Number 89, episode 89 was Confessions of an Advertising Man. That's more of like Ogilvy's autobiography. And then more recently, number 169, which is a biography of David Ogilvy written by somebody who worked for him. That's The King of Madison Avenue, David Ogilvy and the Making of Modern Advertising. All those books are fantastic. So let me go ahead and jump into the forward of this book. And it talks about how this book was put together, which I found

Starting point is 00:02:27 really fascinating. They published the unpublished David Ogilvie on David's 75th birthday in 1986 and gave it to him on a boat party in London. When David received his copy, for once, words failed him. Otherwise, words were what made him. He's one of the best writers I've ever come across. Reading this collection, one is struck piece after piece, whether the most apparently casual of memos are the most public of pronouncements by how David's words surprise and seduce, tease and provoke. To me, his writing is in the best tradition of Dr. Johnson, opinionated, forceful, and urgent, whether it addresses the higher principles of management or the dangers of the lowly paperclip. Above all, though, one can see in it the reoccurring theme of his love for people, which is an abiding legacy for us in Ogilvy and Mather and an essential part of the extraordinary culture which he crafted

Starting point is 00:03:23 and which endures so strongly. When Ken and Bill decided to make this book, they turned to Joel Ralphison, one of David's paladins. I asked Joel how he went about it and this is what he told me. I canvassed the Ogilvy world, asking for anything David had written, handwritten or typed, long or short, important and thoughtful, or spontaneous and frivolous. Responses by the dozen came pouring into my office. When I'd accumulated a big stack, I went through it, item by item, hoping to find things piling up naturally into a few well-defined categories. And they did. For example, I saw to my surprise that I had made a pile of memos

Starting point is 00:04:05 made up entirely of lists. David loved lists, by the way. And it's real, they're really easy to read, which is, I think, what makes his writing so enjoyable. Relaxed though this book may be, it will also stimulate the most jaded brain in today's world of business. Different in so many degrees, but not in fundamental kind. To the years when David was building his first, this is the most important sentence of this entire section. I'm going to repeat it too. Different in so many degrees, but not in fundamental kind. To the years when David was building his first class business in a first class way. It very well deserves this republishing.

Starting point is 00:04:44 So let me just read that the most, what I feel is the most important section. David was building his first class business in a first class way. Okay. So the book starts out in his early years. Everything from here on in is going to, it's David talking directly to us. This is an excerpt he found, he was working as like a assistant to an account executive and he's 25 years old at the time, and he wrote down his views on advertising. And he winds up finding it when he's in his 50s. And so he sends a copy of this memo. He's the chairman of his company at the time, and he sent the following excerpt to his board. But I'm going to read what he says about advertising and some highlights in there. But it was just hilarious because he wrote this little note to the board.

Starting point is 00:05:25 And he said, this proves two things. One, at 25, I was brilliantly clever. And two, I've learned nothing new in the subsequent 27 years. And so just a few highlights from this very short memo. Every ad must tell the whole sales story. The copy must be human and very simple. Every word in the copy must be human and very simple every word in the copy must count concrete figures must be substituted for atmospheric claims cliches must give way to facts

Starting point is 00:05:54 and empty exhortations to alluring offers and this is not written this memo is not written in like a list form but it is it to me it's like almost like every paragraph is kind of like a maxim so they don't it doesn't flow like he's not writing a narrative here so the very next paragraph he says permanent success has rarely been built on frivolity and that people do not buy from clowns superlatives have no place in a serious advertisement so david drops out of oxford and he never winds up getting his college degree. And he winds up, he has a series of jobs. One, he's working for a very strict chef in Paris. And he gets recruited out of that kitchen to be a door-to-door salesman for this thing called the Aga Cooker.

Starting point is 00:06:37 So he winds up writing, after having some experience trying to sell this thing door-to-door, he writes this thing called The Theory and Practice of Selling the Aga Cooker, a guide to his fellow door-to-door salesman. It was written in 1935 when he was only 24 years old. And in 1971, Fortune magazine republished it, and they called it probably the best sales manual ever written. So I want to read some highlights from that. It says, this is a quote from Fortune.

Starting point is 00:07:01 It says, much of what is espoused for selling stoves door-to-door can be put to good use a half century later for selling any kind of goods in any medium. And so we now we go directly to some of the highlights from from the sales manual. And so it starts in Great Britain. There are 12 million households. One million of these own a car. Only 10,000 own aga cookers. No household which can afford a car can afford to be without an AGA. So right from the get-go, he sets extremely high expectations for himself. And then from here, it's just a bunch of little, almost like maxims. In general, study the methods of your competitors and do the exact opposite.

Starting point is 00:07:40 The worst fault a salesman can commit is to be a bore. So he is writing that when he's 24. This book ends with an absolutely fantastic interview when David is 75 years old, and he's still talking about that 50 years later. Quality of salesmanship involves energy, time, and knowledge of the product. And this next paragraph, he's just going to tell us naturally you have to appeal to the interest. Appeal to the interest of the person you're selling to. If there's a cook in the house, she's bound to have the casting vote over a new cooker. Butter her up.

Starting point is 00:08:14 Never go above her head. Before the sale and afterwards, as a user of your product, a cook can be your bitterest enemy or your best friend. She can poison a whole district or act as your secret representative. The aga will mean for her, and this is the interest, this is why you start with her and she helps convince the person. He's selling it door to door in like a very, like a fluent area. So a lot of these people have staff and cooks and everything else. And so it says, and this is why he starts with the cook because he's appealing directly to their interest. The aga will mean for her an extra hour in bed and a kitchen as clean as a drawing room. Two more bits of advice from this. Use social proof and

Starting point is 00:08:55 then avoid mentioning your competitors. And so he actually gives copy of examples of sales pitches, like actual terms that he would use to overcome specific objections. So he says, do you know so-and-so who had just put in an AGA? Go on mentioning all the satisfied owners until you find someone

Starting point is 00:09:15 whose name is familiar to the prospect. Try to avoid being drawn into discussing competitors as it introduces a negative and defensive atmosphere. On no account sling mud. It can carry very little weight coming from you. It can carry very little weight coming from you, obviously, because you're trying to sell them a competing product and it will make the prospect distrust your integrity and dislike you. OK, so now we get to the section of the book

Starting point is 00:09:41 where it's all notes, memos, letters. A lot of this is internal company communication, which is really, really fascinating. And one thing that makes David such an effective communicator is the fact that he speaks in maxims. He's very pithy, but he also repeats himself over and over again. And it's because he's and I don't consider this overly reductive by any means. He takes like an idea and reduces it down to something that you can remember and carry with you. And it's memorable in the way he talks. Like one example would be the importance of paying for talent. He'll say instead of saying, you know, pay, you know, people are extremely talented or not going to work for like they're expensive. You have to pay them. He won't say that. He'll say, pay peanuts and you get monkeys. When he wants to tell you about the importance of researching the great work that came before you and making sure that you have extensive product knowledge and then comparing those people that don't do this, other people in his field, he'll say a blind pig can sometimes find truffles, but it helps to know that organizations only succeed if they're led by formidable individuals, he'll say search all the parks in your cities.

Starting point is 00:10:47 You'll find no statues of committees. And so this is an example of that. He's writing, he writes an entire memo that is titled Gentlemen with Brains. And the point of this section is that he's talking about the kind of people he wants to hire and to work with. Hire gentlemen with brains and be one too, is the note I left myself. Ogilvy and Mather must have gentlemen with brains. To compromise with this principle

Starting point is 00:11:11 sometimes looks expedient in the short term, but it can never do Ogilvy and Mather any permanent good. There was a sense of class in the way Ogilvy led his life and then built his business. This is another memo, which I love, because all the best founders, when you read all these biographies, you realize all the best founders are teachers. One of my favorite quotes about this is from Sol Price, who I consider the most influential retailer of all time.

Starting point is 00:11:33 His ideas have been used by people like the founder of Costco, Jim Sinigal, Sam Walton, Jeff Bezos, the guys that founded Home Depot, on and on. But he said something that was fantastic. He said, you train an animal, you teach a person. And so Ogilvy is using a metaphor about what he wants his business to be, his company to be. And so he's writing this memo to the board of directors, a teaching hospital is the title of this. I have a new metaphor. Great hospitals do two things. They look after patients and they teach young doctors. Ogilvy and Mather does two things. They look after patients and they teach young doctors. Ogilvy and Mather does two things. We look after clients and we teach young advertising people. Ogilvy and Mather is the teaching hospital of the advertising world.

Starting point is 00:12:20 And as such, to be respected above it is to be respected above all other agencies. And then he ends the memo and he repeats himself over and over about the traits that he wants. He was he said at the time there was no such thing as company company culture. He's like, I call it philosophy. What I call philosophy then is now referred to as company culture. But he's constantly trying to make the culture he wants very explicit. And so he says and he's talking about the people he wants to work with and the traits that not only that he wants to possess, but the people that are working with him have to possess. I plead for charm, flair, showmanship, taste, distinction. Okay. There's two other things that are happening on a few pages later from two different memos. So the first one is the note of myself is number one, always think service first and number two, make it memorable. So I'll handle these separately. So the first one, always think service first. And number two, make it memorable. So I'll handle these separately.

Starting point is 00:13:05 So the first one, he's just writing about like the behavior you should be having. A lot of clients are coming into the office. They're pitching. They're trying to get new businesses. And he's saying a lot of these meetings are led by people, especially like at the very beginning of his agency, he was getting all the business himself. But if not, usually the most senior people are the one trying to communicate and close a client. But there's junior people, people that are still younger and don't know as much, that are in these meetings. Don't just sit there and do nothing, though.

Starting point is 00:13:33 So, again, always think service first. The main purpose of this memo is to say that the most junior agency representative present at any meeting should make himself useful by servicing the meeting. For example, if we start discussing an old advertisement, he should leave the room and return with the advertisement. And he should not have to be, his point is like, I shouldn't have to, you shouldn't have to be told to do this. You should be proactive. Then we would have it before us and we could discuss it more sensibly.

Starting point is 00:13:59 If at some point in the meeting, it becomes apparent that we would make more progress if we had the art director or one of the media experts present, the junior man should leave the meeting and return with the person concerned. All too often, I see our junior people sitting on their fannies, not reacting to the stimuli which arise. And then two examples of that last note where I said, make it memorable. These are very short. So one thing that's very fascinating about the career of Ogilvy is he had, he treated life like an event, the adventure that it is, right. And I think that's one of the things I most admire about him, but he also had such a wide varied life experience before he started his first company at 38. You know, he was working for

Starting point is 00:14:38 a diplomat, a cook, a door-to-door salesman and work living on an Amish farm. And one thing that he learned, he worked for, I forgot the guy's name, living on an Amish farm. And one thing that he learned, he worked for, I forgot the guy's name, but he worked for the British, it's like the British version of the CIA. And if I'm not mistaken, Ogilvy's boss was one of the inspirations for Ian Fleming to write the James Bond character. And so what Ogilvy said he learned from, I forgot the gentleman's name, but what he learned from his boss was the value of a terse memo. And so you would write this guy, Ogilvy would send him communication. And if I remember correctly, you would get one of three responses back from he would just write on top of the paper

Starting point is 00:15:17 you give him. Yes, no, or question mark. And question mark meant come to see him. And so Ogilvy took from that lesson, the value of brevity of getting to your point extremely fast. And so this is a very, it's like a tweet sized memo that he's sending Joel, who he's working with. But even in a tweet sized memo, he knows like you get their attention, you make it memorable. He says, Joel, I thought you promised to show me the Sears ads last Tuesday. It has been three months since Struthers picked them. Longer than the period of gestation in pigs. So Joel probably gets, I mean, obviously you're still going to pay attention to if you get a memo from your boss, but Joel probably gets a lot of inter-office communication, right? And it's a, hey, where's

Starting point is 00:15:58 that Sears ad? Let me see it. That's one way to communicate it. When you say, hey, let me see that Sears ad. They've been with other agency for longer than it takes a pig to gestate. Like that's just such an odd thing to appear in a memo. It's going to it will make it will definitely grab your attention. It'll definitely make it memorable. He's writing. There's another example of this. And this is something that somebody did to him that made it's a job application. Hundreds of millions, who knows how many job applications have ever been written? How many of them do you actually remember? So this is a letter to Ray Taylor, who used to work for Ogilvy and Mather as a copywriter. He wound up retiring many years later from another agency, and David takes the time to write him a letter, and it's because

Starting point is 00:16:41 Ray made himself memorable. He said, Dear Ray, 19 years ago, you wrote me the best job application letter I have ever received. I can still recite the first paragraph. The first paragraph read, My father was in charge of the men's lavatory at the Ritz Hotel. My mother was a chambermaid at the same hotel. I was educated at the London School of Economics. So in another memo, he's talking about things that they need to fix within the company. The note they have here is, what's your cost? Why does a newspaper need a palace to publish in? That came from Charlie Munger.

Starting point is 00:17:16 I think they were touring the newspaper they'd bought. I think it was the Buffalo Evening News. He just couldn't get over the extravagance. Like, this is ridiculous. And then a reminder that the easier it is to communicate the more people will do it wastefully and so olga b's trying to check his own business here he says number one crack down publicly on two or three office heads who spend too much on decorating their offices number two wage war on the unnecessary use of telex so telex was this thing happened after world war ii it's very it's like a two-way

Starting point is 00:17:45 messenger uh to send business to business communication but also internally so like the modern day equivalent would be like like slack uh i have the impression that telex has become the normal medium for inter-office communication the vast majority of messages i see are not urgent in any way and he he wraps up this memo. I find extravagance aesthetically repulsive. I find the New England Puritan tradition more attractive and more profitable. So now he's writing another memo to a copywriter that he respects. And the note I left myself is write an obituary while they're still alive. And so he's writing this guy's obituary. And really what was happening, and he's obviously still alive, what's happening is he's telling

Starting point is 00:18:29 us the traits that he admires in other people, right? Shyness makes it impossible for me to tell any man what I think of him when he's still alive. However, if I outlive you, I shall write an obituary along these lines. It says he was probably the nicest man I've ever known. His kindness to me and to dozens of other people was nothing short of angelic. along these lines. It says, it more and more as the years went by. He was one of my few partners who worked harder and longer hours than I did. He gave value for money and he knew his trade. He was an honest man in the largest sense of the word. He had a glorious sense of humor. He had the courage to challenge me when

Starting point is 00:19:19 he thought I was wrong, but he always contrived to do it without annoying me. There was nothing saccharine about him. Tolerant as he was, he did not like everybody. He disliked the people who deserved to be disliked. He never pursued popularity, but he inspired universal affection. So this is a memo to his staff when he does not like the work that they're producing. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night. That's something he repeats hundreds of times. Very few of you seem to have paid attention to this.

Starting point is 00:19:53 Three years ago, I woke up to the fact that the majority of our campaigns, while impeccable as to positioning and promise, contain no big idea. They were too dull to penetrate the filter which consumers erect to protect themselves against the daily deluge of advertising. Too dull to be remembered. Too dull to build a brand image. Too dull to sell. You cannot bore people into buying your product. Something he also repeats over and over again. In short, we were still sound, but we were no longer brilliant. Neither soundness nor brilliance is any good by itself. Each requires the other. So that's another thing that he'll repeat over and over again, that there's traits that people usually go after one or the other, but you have to combine them. So this idea that you have to be sound and brilliant, but you can't be just brilliant and just sound. Another example that he uses is that you have to be creative and

Starting point is 00:20:50 research. He says a lot of creative people think that there's just like, they're some kind of divine inspiration, they're too good to research. And then some researchers are just too black and white. And they think you can solve problems just by the numbers. He's like, no, combine the two um so that's a let me read that part again in short we were still sound we were no longer brilliant neither soundness nor brilliance is any good by itself what each requires the other so the time has come to give the pendulum a push in the other direction if that push has puzzled you caught you on the wrong foot and confused you, I can only quote Ralph Waldo Emerson. Quote from Emerson, a foolish consistent, this is such a fantastic quote, one of his best quotes. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Speak what you think today in

Starting point is 00:21:37 words as hard as cannonballs and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradicts everything you said today. That's the end of Emerson's quote. And this is where this is how Ogilvy ends this memo. I went all of our offices to create campaigns which are second to none in positioning, promise and brilliant ideas. Just one sentence that I pulled out from a different memo. I prefer a posture of confident authority. One more sentence from a long memo that he wrote, or a letter I guess he wrote to his 18-year-old nephew who was seeking his advice. You have a first-class mind. Stretch it.

Starting point is 00:22:22 One more sentence I pulled out when he's talking about his own book ogilvy on advertising i wrote what i really believe my last will and testament a list that he responds to a journalist who is writing a book on lengthy careers asking david how he had lasted so long number one i've outlived all my competitors number Number two, my obsessive interest in advertising has not dimmed. Number three, my younger partners have tolerated my presence in their midst. Number four, I had the wisdom to give them a free run. As a result, Ogilvy and Mather has outgrown its founder. Another memo on the hobbies. He's talking about all the things he can't do.

Starting point is 00:23:10 And his interests really are rather narrow. He says, I spend several hours a day working in my garden and several hours a day at my desk. And I read a great deal, mostly biography. I'm going to actually read the whole, the entire next memo because I's fascinating it's on he's writing a memo on how he writes copy so this sounds like a lot of writers if you'll you hear them give talks or even write about the act of their craft of actually writing a lot of them say that they hate the act of writing but they like having written and so there's kind of that theme that echoes in this memo or this letter that Ogilvy is outlining. He's going to outline, what is this, 12? It's going to be a little longer. So it's 12 steps that he uses. He says, you wrote me asking some notes on my

Starting point is 00:23:58 work habits as a copywriter. They are appalling, as you're about to see. Number one, I've never written an advertisement in the office. Too many interruptions. I do all my writing at home. Number two, I spend a long time studying the precedents. I look at every, this is, this sets him apart because so few people are willing to do this. Everybody talks about, oh, there's so much competition when you're starting businesses or doing anything difficult.

Starting point is 00:24:21 It's like, there's not competition. There's very few competition at the very top because most of the people go after the easiest things. Listen to this. He hasn't even started writing his ad yet. And he says, I spent a long time studying the precedents. I look at every advertisement which has appeared for competing products during the last 20 years.

Starting point is 00:24:41 And that echoes what Buffett was talking about in one of his books where he's like, if you want to, before making an investment, thinking about making making investment in a company, not only do you read every single report that they produce, but you have to read every single other report that every other company in the same industry produces. How many people are willing to do that? without research material, and the more motivational, the better. Number four, I write out a definition of the problem and a statement of the purpose which I wish the campaign to achieve. Then I go no further until the statement and its principles have been accepted by the client. Number five, before actually writing the copy, I write down every conceivable fact and selling idea. Then I get them organized and relate them to research and the copy platform. Number six, then I write the headline. As a matter of fact, I write 20 alternative headlines for every ad. And I never

Starting point is 00:25:35 select the final headline without asking the opinions of other people in the agency. In some cases, I seek the help of the research department and get them to do a split run on a battery of headlines. Number seven, at this point, I can no longer postpone doing the actual copy. So I go home and sit at my desk. I find myself entirely without ideas. I get bad tempered. If my wife comes into the room, I growl at her. He says this has gotten worse since I gave up smoking. Number eight, I am terrified of producing a lousy ad. This causes me to throw away my first 20 attempts. Number nine, if all else fails, I drink a half a bottle of rum and play some classical music on the gramophone. This generally produces an uncontrollable gush of copy. Number 10, next morning I get up early and edit the gush.

Starting point is 00:26:29 Number 11, I take the train to New York and my secretary types a draft. Number 12, I am a lousy copywriter, but I am a good editor. So I go to work editing my own draft. After four or five editings, it looks good enough to show to the client. If the client changes the copy, I get angry because I took a lot of trouble writing it. And what I wrote, I wrote on purpose. Altogether, it is a slow and laborious business. I understand that some copywriters have much greater facility.

Starting point is 00:27:01 So he gets a letter asking for a response of what his greatest his worst shortcomings were and so he just sends this guy back a list of a list of 12 of his shortcomings number one i'm intolerant of mediocrity and laziness number two i fritter away too much time on things which aren't important number three like everyone of my age I talk too much of the past. Number four, I have always funked firing people who needed to be fired. Number five, I am afraid of flying and I go to ridiculous lengths to avoid it. Number six, when I was the creative head in New York, I wrote too much of the advertising myself. Number seven, I know nothing about finance. Number eight, I change my

Starting point is 00:27:47 mind about advertising and about people. Number nine, I am candid to the point of indiscretion. Number 10, I see too many sides to every argument. Number 11, I am over-impressed by physical beauty. Number 12, I have a low threshold of boredom. Oh, this is interesting. Somebody asked him for a list of his best books on advertising. I'm going to read them off. I'll just leave the list down below, though, too, in case you want to grab some of these. So he says, somebody recently asked me for a list of my most useful books on advertising, the books that all of our people should read.

Starting point is 00:28:24 Here's what I sent them. Number one, Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins. So Claude Hopkins, I did his autobiography, My Life in Advertising, which is actually the application of his ideas in scientific advertising throughout his career. That was, I think, Founders Number 170. Scientific Advertising sold like eight or 9 million copies. Um, it was so valuable that, that Albert Lasker, his Claude Hopkins boss kept it locked in a safe for 20 years because he didn't want competitors to have the idea, their ideas. Um, definitely recommend picking that up. Uh, number two, tested advertising methods by John Capels.

Starting point is 00:28:59 Number three, confessions of an advertising man by Ogilvy himself. Number four, how to advertise by Kenneth Roman. Number five, reality and advertising an Advertising Man by Ogilvy himself. Number four, How to Advertise by Kenneth Roman. Number five, Reality in Advertising by Rosser Reeves. Number six, The Art of Writing Advertising by Bernach, Burnett, and Gribben. And number seven, and he says Ogilvy too. Number seven, The 100 Best Advertisements by Julian Watkins. So that's a little difficult for audio, so I'll just leave the list in the show notes below. This is one of his best maxims when he repeats over and over again, don't be a dull bore. We can't save souls in an empty church. And again, that's just a lot

Starting point is 00:29:33 more memorable than saying, hey, if your ads are boring, no one's going to read them. And if they don't read them, they're not going to buy the product. Instead, he says, don't be boring. We can't save souls in an empty church. A lot of what makes Ogilvy's writing so memorable and pleasurable to read is that he's funny. He's getting somebody, a competitor of his, sends him a letter asking for advice. He says someone in another agency asked him to answer a question. Here's the question. What single step would most enhance our reputation for creativity? This is Ogilvy's response.

Starting point is 00:30:06 Change the name of your agency to Ogilvy. I love this guy. One thing he also preaches is that you need consistency. He talks about that don't stop. Like once an ad works, don't pull it. Don't stop using it until it stops converting into customers. One way he talks about this is like, listen listen you're not advertising to a standing army it's to a moving parade he's example of selling dove soap using the same uh advertising for like 30 years he would sell new

Starting point is 00:30:37 refrigerators if i'm not mistaken to newlyweds like a targeted to newlyweds because more different people get married every year and that uh the same people that got married last year all need a refrigerator when they're buying a new house the same people keep doing this for 10 15 20 years in the future so really there what i would talk what i would summarize this section is decide what you want to be known for and then stick to it so he's talking about really building an image, a consistent image of your company or your product or your brand into customers' mind. Don't flip-flop. And so he writes, I find that most manufacturers are reluctant to accept any such limitation on the image and personality of their brands. They want to be all things to all people. And in their greed,

Starting point is 00:31:20 they almost always end up with a brand that has no personality of any kind. A wishy-washy, neutered brand. What would you think of a politician who changed his public personality every year? Have you noticed that Winston Churchill has been careful to wear the same ties and same hats for 50 years so as not to confuse us? what obstinate determination to stick to one coherent creative policy year after year in the face of all the pressures to come up with something new for every six months. The manufacturer who dedicates his advertising to building the most favorable image, the most sharply defined personality, is the one who will get the largest share of the market at the highest profit in the long run we try to create sharply defined personalities for our brands and we stick to those personalities year after year

Starting point is 00:32:14 in another memo he's writing out like what he wants olga v and mother to be and his goal is like the goal is to be the best, not the biggest, the best. We want Ogilvy and Mather to be the best agency. That is one reason why we exercise so much restraint in controlling the speed of our expansion. We must avoid growing so rapidly that our standards of service would have to be diluted. Another memo, he's talking about what you need to do if you want a team full of A players, which is definitely important to him. And then making sure that once you have the best people that you have to give them the freedom to improve on your ideas, you don't know everything, right? So this is on what you have to do if you want a team full of

Starting point is 00:32:59 A players first set exorbitant standards and give your people hell when they don't live up to them. There is nothing so demoralizing as a boss who tolerates second rate work. And then giving freedom to improve on your ideas. I make no apology for having established a set of creative principles, but I cannot believe that they represent the last word. I am hungry for younger creative people to come along and enlarge our philosophies. Start where I leave off. Another memo, there's two different things happening here. The note I left myself is brevity is the soul of wit. And then imagine how good it will feel to accomplish something like that. So let's

Starting point is 00:33:42 take care of the brevity is so wit. He again, in these memos, he's, he sets out a lot of principles and there's like a lot of positive ideas, but he'll call out behavior, which he does not like, which is this, this excessive, don't use more words than is necessary. He says for, for Pete's sake, write shorter memos. Don't argue with each other on paper. Don't send copies of trivial memos to 29 people. I would like you all to make a New Year's resolution. Cut your wordage in half. And so now he's answering a question to himself. Like, what is the difference between his agency?

Starting point is 00:34:16 He's 15 years into building his agency. It's one of the most, it's one of the best agencies in the world. So he says, how does Algovy and Mather look to me? How does the Ogilvy and Mather of 1962 compare with the agency I dreamed of in 1948? Now, remember, before I read you his answer to his own question, imagine how good it will feel to accomplish something like this. It makes all the hard work, all the, it makes all the crap you have to go through to get, to get to this point worth it to tell you the truth it looks a million times better than i ever dreamed it could look

Starting point is 00:34:50 i just cannot believe what a good agency this has grown to be i am terribly proud and terribly grateful one thing about ogreby he says like he just lets work fill all of his hours. And he, I'm going to read this whole thing, but the punchline is, possess extraordinary self-discipline. David is often astonished by working habits that differ from his own. Once discussing a copywriter at another agency whom he admired, he said, listen to this. Every day at precisely five o'clock, this man gets up from his desk, puts on his hat and goes home. There was a long pause to let it sink in. Then he leaned forward for emphasis.

Starting point is 00:35:34 Think of the extraordinary self-discipline that requires. And so part of this book is also like transcripts of speeches he gave. So this is a he's hilarious. This is from a talk given to students at his old. I think this is like the would be like the equivalent of like a high school. I'm pretty sure this is back in Scotland. So he says the masters cram you full of facts so you can pass these odious examinations. This is like cramming corn down the throat of a goose to enlarge its liver.

Starting point is 00:36:04 It may produce excellent foie gras, but it does the goose no permanent good. The mission of a great school is to not cram you with facts so you can regurgitate them a few weeks later on the exam. That gives many boys such a distaste for learning that they never read another book as long as they live. No, the mission of a school is to inspire you with a taste of scholarship, a taste which will last all of your life. I wasn't a great scholar. I detested the Philistines who ruled the roost. I was an irreconcilable rebel, a misfit. And the way he wraps up his speech is hilarious. He says, four years ago, my friend advised you to avoid excess in all things. Mr. Ashcroft used to say the same thing, avoid excess in all things. That is a recipe for

Starting point is 00:37:02 dullness and mediocrity. So reminded me it's very similar edwin land founder of polaroid uh he went back i think it was mit where he gave a lecture about the problems with the education mit in in in short he talks about like uh anybody it it eliminates the ability, the student's ability to think he can be truly great is the summary. I talked about in one of the podcasts, I think it was the book Insisting on the Impossible, maybe Founders Number 40, something in there. But anyways, he also has this great quote that's very similar to what Ogilvy just said. And Edwin Land said, there's a rule they don't teach you at Harvard Business School. It is, if anything is worth doing, it's worth doing to excess. This is a different letter.

Starting point is 00:37:50 Actually, no, this is a speech that he gave at McKinsey & Company. He was a good friend and he admired McKinsey's founder, Marvin Bauer, I think is the guy's name. But he says, I begin with an old-fashioned affirmation. This is on combining hard work, vacations, and laughter. I will begin with an old-fashioned affirmation in the supreme value of hard work. The harder you work, the happier you will be. I believe in the Scottish proverb, hard work never killed a man. A man.

Starting point is 00:38:16 Men die of boredom, psychological conflict and disease. They never die of hard work. I am a stickler for meeting deadlines. I can do almost any job in one weekend. I think everyone can. The trouble is that most chaps are too lazy to burn the midnight oil. They are unwilling to rise to the occasion. On the other hand, I believe in lots of vacations. Sabbaticals recharge batteries. And then he talks about the need to make sure that you're also having fun because that's where you do your best work. When people aren't having any fun, they seldom produce good work.

Starting point is 00:38:50 Kill grimness with laughter. Encourage exuberance. Get rid of sad dogs who spread gloom. This is another memo where he's talking about, this is on creativity, mistakes, and backing your winners. Creativity and innovation function best in an atmosphere of fun and formant. Creativity hardly functions at all in an atmosphere of politics and fear. So he's asking questions. He's talking about, I keep asking myself a bunch of questions.

Starting point is 00:39:18 I'm just going to pull out one or two here. Are we freewheeling entrepreneurs ready to take risks in new ventures? Or are we too frightened of making mistakes? 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. Another question, are we devoting too much time and money to salvaging our flops

Starting point is 00:39:43 and not enough to exploiting our breakthroughs and that's something olgavy talks about a lot in almost all of his books so you're wasting too much time trying to fix your mistakes like mistakes are inevitable find your when you're doing your experiments and you find something that hits hard you find a winner double down and ride it uh one thing olgavy is not fond of is advertising that only relies on temporary sales. He does not like deals and price cuts. He thinks anybody could do that. There's no talent in it. Any damn fool can put on a deal, but it takes genius, faith, and perseverance to create a brand. There used to be a prosperous brand of coffee called Chase and Sanborn. Then they started dealing. They became addicted to price-offs. Where is Chase and Stubborn today?

Starting point is 00:40:31 In the cemetery, dead as a doornail. Promotions cannot produce more than a temporary kink in the sales curve. Why are so many brand managers addicted to price-cutting deals? Because the men who employ them are more interested in next quarter's earnings than in building brands. Why are they so obsessed with next quarter's earnings? Because they are more concerned with their stock options than the future of their company. Deals are a drug. Sound an alarm. Advertising, not deals, builds brands. Another theme that comes across in his speeches, his letters, his memos, is this idea that you need to relentlessly pursue excellence. It is also the duty of our top people to sustain unremitting pressure on the professional standards of their staff. They must not tolerate

Starting point is 00:41:19 sloppy plans or mediocre creative work. In our competitive business, it is suicide to settle for second rate performance. Just a random piece of advice I pulled out here. If you ever find a man who is better than you are, hire him. If necessary, pay him more than you pay yourself. It reminded me when I was reading Rockefeller's biography, Titan, that Rockefeller would collect great people as he came across them, regardless, even if he didn't have a job for them yet. It didn't matter. He would hire them, and then he'd find something for them to do because he realized talent was so rare. Another list. These are five characteristics for rapid promotion within his industry,

Starting point is 00:41:59 within his agency, rather, but I think it applies for all of us. These are also five characteristic traits we might want to possess number one he is ambitious number two he works harder than his peers and he enjoys it number three he has a brilliant brain inventive and unorthodox number four he has an engaging personality number five he demonstrates respect for the creative process so he writes a lot about corporate culture. And I really think the way you think about it, this is a good description of culture. It's very tribe-like. The people who built the companies for which America is famous all worked obsessively to create strong cultures within their organizations. Companies that have cultivated their individual identities by shaping values, making heroes, spelling out rites and rituals, and acknowledging the cultural

Starting point is 00:42:52 network have an edge. I'm just going to pull out some standalone fantastic lines that he has. The line between pride in our work and neurotic obstinacy is a narrow one. Another great line. We have a habit of divine discontent with our performance. It is an antidote to smugness. Another line for you. We like reports and correspondence to be well-written, easy to read, and short. Here's another list of maxims and stuff that he repeats. Again,

Starting point is 00:43:28 I think one of the main things that we learn from these books is the fact that you have to be prepared to repeat yourself. Repetition is persuasive. All the greatest founders have this philosophy and they repeat it over and over again for decades. Through maddening repetition, some of our ideals have been woven into our culture. Some of them I've already repeated. I'm going to try to avoid, pull out just four out of the 10 that I don't think I've repeated. Raise your sights, blaze new trails, compete with the immortals. That's a hell of a line. These are four sentences in one line. Raise your sights, blaze new trails, compete with the immortals. I prefer the discipline of knowledge to the anarchy of ignorance. We pursue knowledge the way a pig pursues truffles.

Starting point is 00:44:11 This one I kind of repeat in a different way. Only first class business and that in a first class way. And never run an advertisement you would not want your own family to see. And again, that's just him constantly repeating traits and ideas that he wants to make sure that everybody in his company understand. This is on leadership. There's an entire chapter on leadership. It has been my observation that great leadership can have an electrifying effect on the performance of any corporation. And leadership comes from individuals, in his opinion. I've had the good fortune to work for three superb leaders.

Starting point is 00:44:50 Petard, my old boss in the kitchens of the Majestic Hotel in Paris, George Gallup, and Sir William Stephenson of British Intelligence. So that's the guy. I was mentioning William Stephenson. That's the guy that was partially inspiration for Bond and then the guy that taught him to write terse memos. I want to say something that's really interesting because he doesn't talk about too much in this book, but in other books he talks about at length learning the value of having unbelievably high standards from this chef in Paris. I was just watching this show on YouTube called Hot Ones, and they interview usually famous people

Starting point is 00:45:17 while they're eating a progressive lineup of even hotter and hotter hot wings. And I watched the one with Gordon Ramsay. And about five minutes in, somewhere about in this interview, he's asked about, he worked under some of the greatest chefs. This is when he was a young chef coming up, and I think mostly in Paris, if I'm not mistaken. But he talks about three people that he learned from.

Starting point is 00:45:42 And these are some of like three masters of their craft and every single example was how relentless they were to up to to make sure that you live up to their unreasonably high standards and how they would throw ducks and curse at him and make him work for free and just he it was he described almost like torturous circumstances that he had to endure. And yet the end result is not, oh, I hated that guy. It's like I learned so much from him. And he talked about the difference between when he came up to a lot of people now. He's like, you don't understand.

Starting point is 00:46:16 He said something like the more you're pushed, the tougher your skin gets, the tougher your skin gets, the further you're going to go in life. That you actually want experiences like that. And, you know, he's kind of known for that, where he's cursing at people and throwing things. I don't watch any of his shows, but I'm pretty sure that's his, that's like, like his image. But I would just point out, like, there's a parallel between what Gordon Ramsay was describing his earlier career with David Ogilvie as well, where, you know, sometimes like the chef was unbelievably rude and crazy to him. But also, like, you don't have to be that. But you like Gallup had unbelievably high standards and you had to write to succeed and to survive in that environment. You had to rise in that beginning of their career, even if it was a difficult time or circumstance they were in, they look back on it and are happy they had to go through that experience. So anyways, that's what I thought of when I got to this section.

Starting point is 00:47:20 Going back to leadership, there appears to be no correlation between industrial leadership and high academic achievement. I was relieved to learn this because I have no college degree. There's a tendency for corporations to reject executives who do not fit their conventions. How many corporations today would promote an unorthodox maverick like Charles Kettering of General Motors? I actually read Charles's biography. It's called Professional Amateur. It's absolutely fantastic. It might be his autobiography, I think.

Starting point is 00:47:47 I don't, actually, it might just be. I don't remember if he wrote it or not, but that was Founders 125. Okay, so he says, how many would promote an unorthodox maverick like Charles Kettering of General Motors? I suggest that corporations should try to tolerate and encourage their mavericks.

Starting point is 00:48:01 The best leaders are apt to be found among those executives who have a strong component of unorthodoxy in their characters. Instead of resisting innovation, they symbolize it, and companies seldom grow without innovation. Great leaders almost always exude self-confidence. They are never petty. They are big men. They are never buck passers. They are resilient. They pick themselves up after defeat in the way Howard Clark picked himself up after the salad oil swindle in his company. Under his indomitable leadership, the price of American Express shares has increased 14 fold since that swindle. And we talked about that a few times on the Warren Buffett podcasts. Most recently in that book, Buffett, The Making of American Capitalists, where he goes into detail about thinking, hey, this is just a one off. This is a great American brand. This business has a lot ahead of it. And everybody's saying sell, sell, sell. They might go out of business. And Warren actually bucked that trend and realized, no, I'm going to invest. I forgot how much he invested. It was a large percentage of his net worth, if I remember correctly. And he wound up paying off handsomely. So that's what Ogilvy is referencing. He's not referencing Buffett, but he's referencing the leadership, the resilience of Howard Clark, who was running American Express at the time.

Starting point is 00:49:13 Great industrial leaders are always fanatically committed to their jobs. They are not lazy or amateurs. I cannot tell you how many times in Ogilvy's writing that word amateur is going to appear. Constantly calling out people that are not taking their job seriously, that are not dedicated to their craft, and then seeking excellence for the sake of it. They do not suffer from the crippling need to be. This is so, so good. There's two sentences here. Ready? They do not suffer from the crippling need to be universally loved.

Starting point is 00:49:43 That's damn good writing. I'm going to read it again. They do not suffer from the crippling need to be universally loved. They have the guts to make unpopular decisions. And he wraps up this section with what he feels is the wisest thing ever said about leadership. The man who has said the wisest things about leadership, in my opinion, is Field Marshal Montgomery. He has said, the leader must have infectious optimism and the determination to persevere in the face of difficulties.

Starting point is 00:50:13 He must also radiate confidence even when he himself is not too certain of the outcome. The final test of a leader is the feeling you have when you leave his presence after a conference. Have you a feeling of uplift and confidence? Okay, so the book ends with a rather extensive interview with David Ogilvie at 75 at his home in France. It's not a home. He lived in a castle for the last 25 years of his life in France. So I'm going to close just going over some random highlights.

Starting point is 00:50:46 This occurs probably over, I don't know, 15 pages. So this is just going to take me a little bit to get through. But really just going to let, as much as I can, just let David speak for himself here. And David Ogilvie, you know, 40, 50 years old, you know, that's like the prime of his career. Wicked smart, really, for me, personally inspiring. But David Ogilvie at 75 is extremely wise because then he's towards the end of his life.

Starting point is 00:51:10 He lives to 88. He has some health troubles later on, though. But really, this is some of the most valuable information. It's like what is a person that lived, a formidable individual that lived a remarkable life like Ogilvie, what is he thinking of as he reflects back on his life? I think there's just a lot of knowledge and useful information in here for us. So it says, some of the things he said in this interview

Starting point is 00:51:31 came as a surprise to even longtime associates. Here are excerpts from three and a half hours of tapes. He's just talking about like, why did you decide to retire and live in France? I guess he's still working, so he's not retired. But he says, you know, most of the important decisions you make in life, at least that I make, I haven't the faintest idea why I make them. I can produce a lot of rationalizations for some emotional thing very deep in my subconscious. So if you ask me why do I live in France,

Starting point is 00:51:57 I suppose the honest answer is I haven't the faintest idea. What would you have done differently if you could do it all over? I wouldn't have made so many damn mistakes. And most notably, I would not have sold so many of my Ogilvy & Mather shares. I was scared. We were being fantastically successful. I kept saying to myself, easy come, easy go. This thing could go up in smoke at any moment.

Starting point is 00:52:23 I was frightened and I wanted to get the money out and put it into something safe. Every time I sold my shares, the price of shares went up. I kept on selling them. If I had all the shares I originally had, I would be worth an enormous fortune today. Do you care to comment on the mega mergers in the advertising agency or advertising business? I'd like to comment. Yes. Mega mergers are for megalomaniacs. Megalomaniacs make mega mergers.

Starting point is 00:52:53 The people who make mega mergers are the people who want to be head of the biggest goddamn advertising agency. That's their ambition. That's what they want. These big mergers do nothing for the people in the agency. It's quite the opposite. They do nothing for their clients. What they do good for is the megalomaniacs who engineer them.

Starting point is 00:53:12 So I'm against that. How would you describe your role in the company today? I don't like my present role as much as I liked my active role. Did you ever think the agency was going to fail? Yes. Every day for years, think the agency was going to fail? Yes. Every day for years, I thought it was going to fail. I was always scared sick, always a terrible worrywart

Starting point is 00:53:33 when I was in my heyday at the agency. I was tortured with anxiety. I remember saying one day, if this is success, God deliver me from failure. In the early days, in spite of being terrified, you resigned a lot of accounts. Why? Was there a pattern to these reasons? Personal dislike made me resign many accounts.

Starting point is 00:53:56 I didn't like having to deal with the son of a bitch. Why should I? We passed this way only once. Anything you've always wanted that eluded you? Yes, a big family, 10 children. You've often given advice to young people. What about older people? Retiring can be fatal. What bugs you? Bores. Above all, bores. I think boring is the ultimate sin. Creative people who refuse to study the product or research or to admit there's more than one way to skin a cat. Incompetence in the advertising business.

Starting point is 00:54:37 I look at an ad or a commercial, and I say, that is just an incompetent piece of work. The guy doesn't know what he's doing. He's incompetent. He doesn't know his trade. He's an amateur. At the end of a long interview, a tedious reporter asked Abe Burroughs, the music comedy writer, what the low point of his life had been. And Burroughs replied, I hate to say, kid, but I think this is it. What irritates you most about interviews? Being interviewed by an individual who doesn't know anything about the subject. The best interview I ever had was on the Larry King show.

Starting point is 00:55:07 I said afterwards, you're the best of all interviews. What is your secret? He said, an absolute ungovernable curiosity. When I was young and flighty in the early days of Ogilvy & Mather, I used to be very outspoken in my interviews. That was one of the reasons I was always being interviewed. They could get good quotes from me. I wasn't afraid of offending clients then. Now I'm terrified of it. I'm terrified of saying something which will annoy a client very much or upset the stock market or something. I've got much more cautious,

Starting point is 00:55:39 therefore duller than I used to be. Are there any other questions you wish I'd asked you? To what do you owe your success? You wish I'd asked you to what do you owe your success? Yes. David, to what do you owe your success? The fashionable answer is to say luck, pure luck. That's what modest people say. They don't want to say that I owe my success to my ineffable genius. I was talking in my old school not long ago in Scotland, and I gave them a little sermon on the subject of success. They should stop thinking about success entirely in terms of material achievements and careers and all that stuff,

Starting point is 00:56:17 and think of success in terms of their own happiness and the happiness of their family. To what do I owe my material success? First of all, I'm the most objective man who has ever lived, including objective about myself. Second, I'm a very, very hard worker. I really work very hard when I'm doing a job and I pull a lot into it. Next thing is I'm a good salesman. That's terribly important. It's underestimated in the advertising business now, Getting new business.

Starting point is 00:56:49 Most people in advertising don't know anything about it. They go to work in an agency. They're given an account that some joker got a few years ago. The bed is already made for them. I had to make my own bed. I was a very, very good salesman. And that's an important thing to be. I've always had an eye for the main chance. I made a lot of speeches and written a lot of talks to different audiences, and I'm always selling Ogilvy and Mather. I hope I can seal that sometimes, but I am. The things are loaded with commercials for the agency. I once went to a lunch, a thing called the Scottish Council. They had a lunch in New York.

Starting point is 00:57:22 They were a small group of Scotsmen and they got together. There were about 10 people and I smelled billing. And from that lunch, I eventually got Shell because Max Burns, the then president of Shell, was at the lunch. I got Tom McCann's shoes because the man who owned the shoe company was at the lunch. I got British travel because Jim Turbain, head of BTA New York, was there. All from one lunch. I can smell billing. Also, and this is related to being objective, I came into advertising from research and that gave me a great advantage. I always approached the creative role. I'd see the creative thing through a researcher's eyes. I'm almost unique in that way. Very few creative people do.

Starting point is 00:58:07 A lot of creative people fight research and don't want much to do with it. I was the exact opposite. I came at it from research and suddenly I was doing very good campaigns. And that gave me a great advantage. It was unique. It still is. And for a time, I had a short period of my life, I think maybe 10 years, when I was pretty close to being a genius. And I can look back on that with interested curiosity

Starting point is 00:58:34 and affection and some nostalgia. Then it ran out. But I was. And that is where I'll leave it for the full story I highly highly recommend picking up this book or any book written about or by David Ogilvie I'd start with the books written by him first because you'll love his writing I think time spent with David Ogilvie is time well spent

Starting point is 00:58:58 that if you want to buy the book and support the podcast at the same time you can do so by using the link that's in the show notes on your podcast player. That is 189 books down, 1,000 to go, and I'll talk to you again soon.

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Founders - #189 David Ogilvy (The book I've given as a gift the most)

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