18 August 2005

The Most Famous Advertising Man in the World

While bantering with Ray & Brad on The Advertising Show, we started to talk about the history of advertising—and (no surprise) David Ogilvy's name came up. I think I stumped the stars - asking them how old they thought Mr. Ogilvy was when he wrote his first ad.

Answer: Thirty-nine.

The ads/campaigns that David Ogilvy is most famous for were created when he was in his forties and fifties. (Advertising agencies today don't like to hear this.)

Here is an entertaining (and revealing) speech given by Kenneth Roman last year about David Ogilvy. An excerpt:
When he began to make his mark on Madison Avenue, Fortune described him. “At fifty-three, Ogilvy is a remarkable young-looking man, with wavy, dark-blond hair (cut rather long), blue eyes, and a fair complexion, who might easily be mistaken for a successful British actor. He smokes a pipe, his speech is that of an English gentleman, and he wears tweed to the office, where he is served tea every afternoon by a maid named Bridey Murphy. His vests have lapels.”
Mr. Roman is the former chairman and chief executive officer of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide - and was also a guest on The Advertising Show.

15 August 2005

On The Advertising Show

Major thanks to Brad Forsythe, Ray Schilens, Stephanie Ceritelli, and all involved with The Advertising Show for putting up with me as a guest last Sunday, August 7th. It was great fun, and a real honor. (And to be honest, I was a bit shocked that they called. The book is barely out of the gate.)

You can listen to the archived show here. Two hours compressed to 79 minutes.

This week their guest is Brian Steinberg, the advertising columnist for The Wall Street Journal. The week after that, Mike Boylson, Executive Vice President/CMO of the J.C. Penney Corporation. And in September, (Cyber-Legend) Lars Bastholm of AKQA is booked.

What's the matter? Can't they attract any important people???

14 August 2005

Digital Agencies Hunt for Video Talent


Kevin Newcomb of ClickZ reports:
With more advertisers looking to enhance their online ads and Web sites with video, more agencies are looking both inside and out to find talent to bridge the gap between offline video and online rich media.

"The challenge with finding the right people is on a conceptual level," Troy Young, VP of interactive strategy at Omnicom's Organic, told ClickZ News. "This is really hard stuff, creating content that people want to share. The goal is to find storytellers that understand the medium."
Hmmm. I wonder if digital media agencies should take a look at the two chapters in my book that The Advertising Educational Foundation has on their web site.

10 August 2005

Those Selfish, Money-Grubbing Baby Boomers

Andrea Coombes of MarketWatch has put together a trenchant article about Baby Boomers and their value systems. In this case, it has to do with inheritances:
Bequests of another kind
Money is low on the list of what boomers hope to inherit

Seventy-seven percent of boomers said understanding their parents' values is very important, 65% said enacting their parents' last wishes is key and 34% felt receiving their parents' sentimental treasures is very important, according to a telephone and online survey of about 1,200 boomers, conducted for Allianz, the insurance company, by Harris Interactive. For this study, boomers are those 40 to 59 years old.

But just 10% of boomers said it was very important their parents bequeath financial assets or real estate.
No surprise to me. Probably a big surprise to many media pundits who trash this generation.

And according to Carol Goar of The Toronto Star, Baby Boomers north of here are just as self-obsessed and money-grubbing:

Boomers look past bottom line.

08 August 2005

Marketplace: Marketing to Boomers

American Public Media's Marketplace had a feature last Friday morning worth listening to. If you do — how interesting that the last line is one of the major themes of my book. Good to hear that other folks are on the same wavelength. In this instance, it's a professor of television/advertising at Syracuse University.