David Ogilvy (businessman)

David Mackenzie Ogilvy CBE (/ˈoʊɡəlviː/; 23 June 1911 – 21 July 1999) was a British advertising tycoon, founder of Ogilvy & Mather, and known as the "Father of Advertising." Trained at the Gallup research organisation, he attributed the success of his campaigns to meticulous research into consumer habits. His most famous campaigns include Rolls-Royce, Dove soap, and Hathaway shirts.

David Mackenzie Ogilvy was born on 23 June 1911 at West Horsley, Surrey in England. His mother was Dorothy Blew Fairfield, daughter of Arthur Rowan Fairfield, a civil servant from Ireland. His father, Francis John Longley Ogilvy, was a stockbroker.

He was the first cousin once removed of the writer Rebecca West and of Douglas Holden Blew Jones, who was the brother-in-law of Freda Dudley Ward and the father-in-law of Antony Lambton, 6th Earl of Durham. Ogilvy attended St Cyprian's School, Eastbourne, on reduced fees because of his father's straitened circumstances^{[citation needed]} and won a scholarship at age thirteen to Fettes College, in Edinburgh. In 1929, he again won a scholarship, this time in history, to Christ Church, Oxford. He left Oxford after two years, having failed his exams.

In 1931, he became a kitchen hand at the Hotel Majestic in Paris. After a year, he returned to Scotland and started selling AGA cooking stoves, door-to-door. His success at this marked him out to his employer, who asked him to write an instruction manual, The Theory and Practice of Selling the AGA Cooker, for the other salesmen. Thirty years later, Fortune magazine editors called it the finest sales instruction manual ever written.

After seeing the manual, Ogilvy's older brother Francis Ogilvy—the father of actor Ian Ogilvy—showed the manual to management at the London advertising agency Mather & Crowther where he was working. They offered the younger Ogilvy a position as an account executive, which he took up in 1935.

In 1938, Ogilvy persuaded his agency to send him to the United States for a year, where he went to work for George Gallup's Audience Research Institute in New Jersey. Ogilvy cites Gallup as one of the major influences on his thinking, emphasizing meticulous research methods and adherence to reality.

During World War II, Ogilvy worked for the British Intelligence Service at the British embassy in Washington, DC. There he analysed and made recommendations on matters of diplomacy and security. According to a biography produced by Ogilvy & Mather, "he extrapolated his knowledge of human behaviour from consumerism to nationalism in a report which suggested 'applying the Gallup technique to fields of secret intelligence.'" Eisenhower's Psychological Warfare Board picked up the report and successfully put Ogilvy's suggestions to work in Europe during the last year of the war.

Also during World War II, Ogilvy was a notable alumnus of the secret Camp X, located near the towns of Whitby and Oshawa in Ontario, Canada. According to an article on the camp: Although Ogilvy was trained in sabotage and close combat, he was ultimately tasked with projects that included successfully ruining the reputation of businessmen who were supplying the Nazis with industrial materials.