I first read Confessions when I was applying for Ogilvy’s grad scheme in 2004. I can remember at the time being struck by the volume of invaluable best practice principles it outlined, which seemed to be just as useful to a current wannabe ad man, as they would have been to someone first reading it in 1963.  Confessions is less a book about how to write a successful ad, as it is a book about how to create a successful business practice that will lead to great work that sells.

In the opening chapter of the 1988 reprint, David Ogilvy explains that he wrote Confessions for 3 reasons:

1.       To attract new Clients to the advertising agency
2.       To condition the market for a public offering of its shares
3.       To make himself better known in the business world.

Evidently, it achieved all three. There’s effectiveness for you!

A cross between an autobiography and a ‘how to’ guide for budding admen (or any business people for that matter), Confessions is a distillation of David Ogilvy’s tried and tested guiding principles for succeeding in the advertising business. The book is peppered with rules and soundbites which have become part of the colour of the industry as much as they have helped form the basis of modern advertising principles. Such was David Ogilvy’s talent for writing succinct and memorable copy, there are times that the book reads like a list of advertising headlines and calls to action. Little wonder therefore that he has been quoted so prolifically – both inside and outside the advertising industry. My earlier post highlights some of my own favourite Ogilvy-isms.

In the first chapter of Confessions, David Ogilvy deals with the issue of managing an advertising agency. The chapter reveals the emphasis that the “father of modern advertising” placed on developing young people around him, and how he worked hard to develop a culture of intellectual rigour, honesty, meritocracy and respect – “gentlemen with brains”.

“I admire people with first class brains, because you cannot run an advertising agency without brainy people. But brains are not enough unless they are combined with intellectual honesty.”

In subsequent chapters, David Ogilvy lays down his principles for winning and retaining good Clients – revealing the degree of personal investment in the relationship he always aspired to attain:

“The relationship between a manufacturer and his advertising agency is almost as intimate as the relationship between a patient and his doctor. Make sure you can live happily with your prospective Client before you accept his account.”

In a message to prospective Clients, Ogilvy stresses the importance of “emancipating your agency from fear” in order to extract the best service. He is also quite emphatic that Clients should not try to “compete” with their agency in the creative area. “Why keep a dog and bark yourself.” I have to confess I haven’t quoted that one in too many Client meetings myself…

David Ogilvy’s guiding principles on how to create effective campaigns are arguably as relevant to agencies today as they were when they were first penned:

1.       What you say is more important than how you say it
2.       Unless your campaign is built around a great idea, it will flop
3.       Give the facts, but make them compelling
4.       You cannot bore people into buying
5.       Be well-mannered, but don’t clown (that is to say “it’s easier to sell with a friendly handshake, than by hitting them over the head with a hammer.”)
6.       Make your advertising contemporary
7.       Committees can create advertisements, but they cannot write them
8.       If you are lucky enough to write a good advertisement, repeat it until it stops pulling
9.       Never write an advertisement which you wouldn’t want your own family to read (in the sense that you should always tell the truth and shouldn’t try to deceive).
10.   Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image. If you take that long view, many day-to-day problems solve themselves.

The book also reveals that David Ogilvy was a major advocate of empirical research:

“The most important word in the vocabluary of advertising is TEST…Test your promise. Test your media. Test your headlines and your illustrations. Test the size of your advertisements. Test your frequency. Test your level of expenditure. Test your commercials. Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving.”

The latter chapters of the book are perhaps those that have aged the most, in the sense that they outline some very specific rules on how to write an ad, which today seem both unnecessarily prescriptive and constrictive (“There is no need for advertisements to look like advertisements. If you make them look like editorial pages, you will attract 50% more readers.”).

In summary, Confessions is an extremely well-written book that is as insightful, honest and direct as its author was reputed to be. Although some of the ‘rules’ feel a bit dated in today’s environment, it is clear that many of Ogilvy’s guiding principles continue to serve as useful foundations for building a successful advertising business.

If there is something to criticise about the tonality of the book, then David Ogilvy himself identifies it in his introduction to the 1988 reprint: “If I were writing it today it would be less indiscreet, less boastful, and less didactic.”

The Madman had humility too!