If David Ogilvy Was Starting Today, He’d Be A Search Marketer

David Ogilvy was one of the godfathers of Madison Avenue. His book, “Ogilvy on Advertising” remains a marketing bible and his agency, Ogilvy & Mather, a worldwide force.

What’s interesting is how he got his start.

He sold stoves door-to-door in Scotland during the heights of the Depression. In becoming successful at it, he became fascinated in how what he said made a difference between whether he got in the door or not.  He learned, tested new approaches and eventually became so successful they asked him to write the sales manual for the entire company. By the end of the 30’s he had followed his interest across the Atlantic to work for Gallup Research. He later cited their emphasis on meticulous research and adherence to reality as a major influence on his thinking.

His Approach

“I prefer the discipline of knowledge to the anarchy of ignorance.”

“Do your homework. Study the product you’re going to advertise.”

Given this philosophy, I think he would be ‘gob-smacked’ by the tools every marketer today has at their fingertips such as keyword research.

“If you’re trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think.”

Sounds like he would have loved tools like Google’s Wonder Wheel.

I suspect he would admire the whole suite of online tools every ad practictioner has available to them today:

Men Before They Went Mad

When you consider these wise words, it seems to me that, somewhere along the way, advertising got a little lost from his era to ours. Drank a little too much Nike juice and lost focus. As media fragmented and cluttered, the business started squeezing too hard on the bat hoping for creative entertainment to be what broke through. Ogilvy said:

“When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative’, I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product.”

Or, more succinctly:

“If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.”

I’m not saying that we don’t have a duty to make it interesting by using our creativity. Search marketers themselves could raise their game along these lines and build more sustainable brand propositions than “Great Price. Buy Now!” but when advertising rewards creativity devoid of insight at the expense of selling based on understanding, something gets lost.

Advertising as a profession has a new chance. We’ve been given an incredible set of tools to dive deep into understanding the needs people have and the exact language they use to articulate it. We need to turn away from Cannes and turn toward keywords and social media to find new clear and compelling ways to communicate.

Hope this helps the cause.

Bob Nunn is an award winning internet marketing consultant based in Toronto passionate about building brands by tuning-up their online marketing. Does your internet marketing need a tune-up? Contact us to learn how our 11-point diagnostic can create a roadmap to get your brand performing online.