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Founders: #306 David Ogilvy (Confessions of an Advertising Man)

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What I learned from reading Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy. ---- Listen to one of my favorite podcasts: Invest Like the Best ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ---- (4:15) When Fortune published an article about me and titled it: "Is David Ogilvy a Genius?," I asked my lawyer to sue the editor for the question mark. (4:45) 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 network, have an edge (5:30) We prefer the discipline of knowledge to the anarchy of ignorance. We pursue knowledge the way a pig pursues truffles. A blind pig can sometimes find truffles, but it helps to know that they grow in oak forests. (5:48) We hire gentlemen with brains. (6:16) Only First Class business, and that in a First Class way. (6:25) Search all the parks in all your cities; you'll find no statues of committees. (9:45) Buy Ogilvy on Advertising (10:45) One decent editorial counts for a thousand a

[00:00:00] 14 years before writing these confessions, I had gone to New York and started an advertising agency. Americans thought I was crazy. What could a Scotsman know about advertising? My agency was an immediate and meteoric success. I wrote this book during my summer vacation in 1962. I thought it would sell 4,000 copies. To my surprise, it was a runaway bestseller and so far has sold over a million copies. Why did I write it? First, to attract new clients to my advertising agency. Second, to condition the market for a public [00:00:31] offering of our shares. Third, to make myself…

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