History
Ogilvy & Mather was founded in 1948 by David Ogilvy, as "Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson, & Mather" in Manhattan with a staff of two and no clients. The company became a leading worldwide agency by the 1960s. Central to its growth was its strategy of building brands such as American Express, BP, Ford, Barbie, Maxwell House, IBM, Kodak, Nestlé, Cadbury and Unilever brands Pond's and Dove.
Ogilvy & Mather was built on Ogilvy's principles, in particular, that the function of advertising is to sell and that successful advertising for any product is based on information about its consumer.
His entry into the company of giants started with several iconic campaigns:
"The man in the Hathaway shirt" with his aristocratic eye patch; "The man from Schweppes is here" introduced Commander Whitehead, the elegant, bearded Brit, bringing Schweppes (and "Schweppervesence") to the United States.; "At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock"; and "Pablo Casals is coming home – to Puerto Rico", a campaign that Ogilvy said helped change the image of a country and was his proudest achievement. "Only Dove is one-quarter moisturizing cream". This campaign helped Dove become the top selling soap in the U.S.
In 1989, The Ogilvy Group was purchased by WPP Group.
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Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)
“This above all makes history useful and desirable: it unfolds before our eyes a glorious record of exemplary actions.”
—Titus Livius (Livy)