How David Ogilvy Grew an Agency on One Unfashionable Idea
In September 1948, David Ogilvy opened an agency with four small accounts and, by his own account, no copywriting experience. His idea that advertising must sell took it to third in the world.
In September 1948, David Ogilvy opened a New York advertising agency on Madison Avenue under the name Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson & Mather,. Two London firms, Mather & Crowther and S.H. Benson, backed it and sent it four starter accounts that together spent only $250,000 a year on advertising: Wedgwood China, British South African Airways, Guinness, and Bovril. Ogilvy had left Oxford without a degree, worked in the kitchen of the Hotel Majestic in Paris, sold AGA cooking stoves door to door, worked for George Gallup's Audience Research Institute, served with the Intelligence Service at the British Embassy in Washington, and farmed in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. By his own later account, he had never written any copy.
