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The King of Madison Avenue
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The King of Madison Avenue

David Ogilvy and the Making of Modern Advertising

Kenneth Roman
Palgrave Macmillan, 2010
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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

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Recommendation

Author and adman Kenneth Roman worked for and with David Ogilvy for a quarter century at Ogilvy’s groundbreaking ad agency Ogilvy & Mather. Thus, Roman is uniquely placed to understand Ogilvy in the context of his time and achievements. He presents Ogilvy’s life and work, and explains what both meant at the time and now. Despite some unevenness in Roman’s writing style and information flow, Ogilvy emerges as a singular hero in this saga of eccentricity, perseverance and native genius. getAbstract recommends this fast, insightful book to those who write advertising, those who want to, and those interested in the history of advertising and popular culture.

Summary

“The Big Idea”

David Ogilvy came to New York City to launch his advertising agency in 1948. He was 39 and had never written an ad. Five years later, trade magazines sang his praises, and five years after that, he became “the most discussed and publicized adman in a generation.” His fame reached beyond America and his native United Kingdom; he was well known in Europe, India and South Africa. Widely credited with launching the primacy of brands, he became a brand himself.

Ogilvy broke many traditions on Madison Avenue, among them the unspoken restrictions that limited Jews to jobs with certain agencies and clients. He had his own style of communication, either talking nonstop or nodding. Ogilvy produced memos after every meeting and though he avoided confrontation, these missives could be very stern. He popularized and lived by the “Big Idea,” and his most enduring Big Idea was that nothing in marketing mattered as much as a brand.

An Early Outsider

David Mackenzie Ogilvy was born in 1911 on his father and grandfather’s birthday, June 23, and grew up in West Horsley, in Surrey near London. In an England where breeding determined fate, Ogilvy’s paternal...

About the Author

Kenneth Roman worked with David Ogilvy at Ogilvy & Mather. Roman co-wrote How To Advertise and Writing That Works.

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