He worked in countless professions, travelled the world and had three wives, so it isn’t a wonder the advertising guru David Ogilvy didn’t live to see in the millennium.
Sous-chef
In 1929, young David Ogilvy was awarded a scholarship to study History at the prestigious institution of Christ Church College, Oxford. However, two years later the restless scholar was expelled for ‘undisclosed’ reasons and left Oxford for Paris to become an apprentice chef at the Majestic Hotel, situated on the Champs-Élysées.
The precocious Ogilvy was half-traumatised and half-inspired by his boss, the notorious Monsieur Pitard, a ruthless head-chef who fired three pastry-cooks in a month because they couldn’t make the caps on their brioches rise evenly.
Pitard’s merciless management style left a stirring impression on Ogilvy, who credited the “gros bonnet [as] an arch symbol of authority” and a model for discipline and excellence
Pitard’s merciless management style left a stirring impression on Ogilvy, who credited the “gros bonnet [as] an arch symbol of authority” and a model for discipline and excellence.
Working at the Majestic turned up the pressure for Ogilvy - the environment was a minefield of French egos and passion. In Confessions of an Advertising Man, Ogilvy explained how one night the chef potager threw 47 raw eggs at his head, one by one.
“Our chef pâtissier was equally eccentric. Every night he left the kitchen with a chicken concealed in the crown of his Homburg hat. When he went on vacation he made me stuff two dozen peaches into the legs of his long underwear,” he added.
The atmosphere in the kitchen was hostile, and Ogilvy learnt how to deliver exemplary standards of service. While decorating a dish of frog’s legs for the President of France, Monsieur Pitard commended his dexterity, a memory embedded in Ogilvy’s mind forever. When running his advertising company, Ogilvy borrowed Pitard’s manner; only praising his employees on rare, outstanding occasions.
When slaving at the Majestic, Ogilvy learnt valuable traits, such as ‘keeping your word’ and being a martinet for an orderly workplace. Pitard bestowed both obedience and authority on Ogilvy. However, the sweat and toil of a 64 hour week eventually took its toll on Ogilvy; “If I stayed at the Majestic I would have faced years of slave wages, fiendish pressure and perpetual exhaustion” he revealed, and, having served his time, he rapidly moved on to pastures new.
Door-to-door salesman
The semi-Scot followed his highland heritage and moved to Edinburgh, where he settled into the life of a door-to-door salesman. With his brash approach and ‘seal the deal’ charm, Ogilvy began selling stoves like hotcakes.
He persuaded Scottish matrons to buy an Aga by telling them to call the police if their cooks manage to burn more than £4 of fuel a year on their Swedish stoves – a line that worked wonders during the Depression.
The Aga cooker, invented in 1929 by Swedish physicist Dr. Gustaf Dalén, has found its way into the homes of Sophie Conran, Elizabeth Hurley and David Cameron; Ogilvy being a catalyst for the brands success in the UK. His sales technique was noted as one of his finest achievements, fortified by a hard-nosed philosophy: ‘No sale, no commission. No commission, no eat.’
Ogilvy narrated, “For about four months, I just drove around Scotland, ringing bells at convents and monasteries and schools and hospitals.” He would ask for the Mother Superior, and she would sign the order. Ogilvy’s dogged sales pitch hit a homerun when he sold an Aga to the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Edinburgh. The triumph followed with letters of introduction to church leaders in the Archbishop’s diocese.
In 1935, the 24-year-old wide-boy was asked to write an instruction manual for his manager which he titled The Theory and Practice of Selling the AGA Cooker. This pamphlet became a sales bible to the marketing industry and 30 years down the line Fortune magazine editors described it as ‘the best sales manual ever written.’ It was also Ogilvy’s ticket into the advertising world.
The manual suggested, “The perfect Aga salesman combines the tenacity of the bulldog with the manners of the spaniel.” Infusing wit, charm and gritty sales techniques, the whiz-kid salesman turned the Aga into a must have kitchen appliance.
Ogilvy’s influence was so prominent that last year, ten years after his death, the Ogilvy group was appointed by Aga to develop the brand’s new ad campaign.
British Intelligence
In 1936 Ogilvy’s older brother Francis recommended him for an internship at a London-based advertising agency, Mather & Crowley. Ogilvy became account executive, but soon got itchy feet and persuaded the company to send him to the US for a year.
Immigrating to New Jersey, the traveller became associate director of George Gallup’s Audience Research Institute in Princeton. Ogilvy continually paid tribute to Gallup, who was a major influence in developing his meticulous research skills. He remarked, “In my heart I know that my years with Dr. Gallup gave me more insight into the habits and mentality of the American consumer than most native copywriters can bring to bear.”
The marketing revolutionist Gallup founded Gallup & Robinson after he was a research director at Young & Rubicam, an agency that Ogilvy was desperate to join, “but with no qualifications and no credentials [he] never dared ask.” Gallup took Ogilvy under his wing and bestowed upon him a font of knowledge.
