David Ogilvy - The "Father of Modern Advertising"

David Ogilvy is considered to be the "father of modern advertising." His methodologies and professional philosophies revolutionized the marketing industry, and they continue to play an important role in the marketing industry today. The foundation of his marketing principles was comprised of four major components: research, creative brilliance, professional discipline, and results. These components are incredibly important to look at and very helpful to owners of businesses - large and small.
Research
Research is one of the cornerstones of the Ogilvy's marketing success. This is because his background was in research, and this is what he knew. David Ogilvy felt that the success of any marketing campaign was dependent on the amount and quality of research that the marketing professional did. He felt that it was very important to know the target demographic that you were trying to reach before you started working on the advertising campaign. Do you invest a lot into researching tactics and products that are offered by your competitors? It's something to consider and think about...
Professional Discipline
Professional discipline was another cornerstone of Ogilvy's marketing philosophy. This element of his philosophy put a great deal of stock in the importance of professional training. Ogilvy felt that knowing your craft was as important to a successful marketing campaign as the creative aspects of the campaign's design. Again, this is one of those points where it's good to do some self-evaluation. Are you well-versed and skilled in your profession? Are there some things that you should brush up on in order to make you more effective and valuable to your customers and clients?
Creative Brilliance
Another important element of the Ogilvy marketing machine was creative brilliance. Ogilvy felt that generating the Big Idea" was key to the success of a marketing firm, and a marketing campaign. Ogilvy himself was credited with several "Big Ideas" during his career including the slogan, "at 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock" and many, many more.
Results
The final element of Ogilvy's successful marketing philosophy was results. He felt that creative genius was basically useless if you couldn't sell your ideas afterward. This means that successful marketing executives not only needed to be creative professionals, but they also needed to be able to sell themselves and their ideas to their clients. Are you seeing results from your efforts? Do you have metrics in place to measure the effectiveness of your marketing strategies?
Learning More About David Ogilvy
During his life David Ogilvy wrote three books on marketing and his marketing philosophy. These books included "Confessions of an Advertising Man" published in 1963, "Blood, Brains & Beer" published in 1974 and "Ogilvy on Advertising." All of these books are great reference materials for marketing professionals and small business owners.
David Ogilvy's strategies are ones that we try to employ daily at CCA. We work hard to research new business avenues, refine our customer service, sharpen our design skills, improve our websites, and create useful tools for our clients. We are a results driven company. How do we measure results? We measure them in the number of happy, satisfied customers. We aim to please every customer that orders business cards from our company.