Five Reasons David Ogilvy Would Like – and Aprove of – Social Media
I’m a big fan of David Ogilvy. The principles he laid down in his books and in his work are still being expressed to great effect – decades later and in more languages he might have ever imagined – by the Ogilvy network worldwide. When Ogilvy passed away just after his 88th birthday in 1999, he would have had no idea (as the rest of us didn’t) what incredible changes were about to re-shape the marketing and advertising landscape. Changes like website functionality and enhancements to HTML and search and later paid search and mobile.
But David was all about was the BIG IDEA. And while all those channels would have made sense in an expanding media world, and maybe would have made great strides under his stewardship, none would likely have tickled him or inspired him more than the proliferation of social media. Based on some of the more important principles he articulated in “Ogilvy on Advertising,” his veritable how-to for all marketing practitioners, here are five key reasons “Uncle Dave” would have been agog over social media.
1. The ability to articulate a unified brand image: Ogilvy wrote “products, like people, have personalities…an amalgam of many things – its name, its packaging, its price, the style of its advertising, and above all, the nature of the product itself.” The many forms of social media allow a brand to articulate that personality across the vast expanses of the online landscape, and give its stewards (brand managers, CMOs and agency contacts) the opportunity to capitalize on that privilege or to puke it away. As Ogilvy said, “it isn’t the {product} they choose, it’s the image.”
2. Word of mouth: David was talking about this in the early 1980’s, while the rest of the industry came around about 20 years later. Ogilvy was fascinated by this aspect of the business and even commented on how elements of advertising, like jingles and fashion styles, were crossing over into mainstream consumption.Of course, the bedrock of social media is word of mouth. It starts with influencing and even starting conversations about your company or your brand, and then monitoring them. Today’s social media tools and third-party-developed platforms allow you to develop, manage and monitor your social “voice” with increasing levels of accuracy.
3. How to become a good copywriter: In the memorial full page ad in Adweek in August 1999, a picture of David Ogilvy was accompanied with his quote: “I’d like to be remembered as a copywriter who had some big ideas.” He knew the business was perched on good ideas, articulated well in copy. And what is social media but a bunch of copy? Web copy, blog posts, comments, LinkedIn profiles, FB posts and statuses…all copy. And the mothership of copywriting? Twitter: just 140 characters to say it right. Although Uncle Dave was a fan of the long-form ad, he may have enjoyed this simple but effective restriction. My guess is he would have summed it up thus: “It’s brilliant. It keeps the rubbish to a minimum, and makes everyone else create new destinations from the same footpath.”
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