Advertising as Social Incubator

Ogilvy on Advertising in the Digital Age – Miles Young – (Bloomsbury)

Those who don’t either work in the business of advertising or who don’t follow the business may not be aware of the name David Ogilvy. Mr. Ogilvy was one of the preeminent practitioners of the form; his name, written in his distinctive script, still adorns the fronts of the offices of his worldwide agency, Ogilvy & Mather.

Ogilvy is the author of what is widely proclaimed to be the go to treatise on the subject of advertising and how it is supposed to done, Ogilvy on Advertising, in which he offers a primer on all facets of advertising. Since its publication nearly 35 years ago the world and in particular the world of advertising has evolved at an astonishing pace.

Given that evolution it seems only fitting that this classic text would be updated and enhanced for the digital age in the form of Ogilvy on Advertising in the Digital Age. Equally fitting is the choice of who would be tasked with that update; Miles Young, joined Ogilvy & Mather in 1983 and rose through the ranks to become the worldwide chairman of the agency in 2009. In September of 2016 he became the dean of New College, Oxford and he remains the non-executive chairman of Ogilvy & Mather.

Delving into this densely written and researched volume is a time consuming and at times difficult task. Given its seemingly microscopic text and literally thousands of miniaturized graphic examples of you will find yourself having to reexamine passages and the visuals multiple times to take in their full meaning.

While the concepts Young/Ogilvy describe in the course of the book are certainly of interest to me, since I make my living working in advertising/marketing, I found myself wondering at times what Mr. Ogilvy’s take on this update might be. At times Young seems to suggest, and certainly there are a multitude of examples of the business drifting in this direction, that advertising has moved away from trying to influence the buying behaviors of customers and into the realm of social incubator; more focused on shifting social mores than selling products and services.

Influence has become a massive commodity in this day and age of social and digital media, not always for the better. Businesses, often enabled by advertising and social agencies, no longer seem to concern themselves with the possibility that they may piss off half of their potential consumers by staking out a position on a social issue. What used to be focused on moving products and selling services has become more of a social dance of political correctness.

Young seems to champion this direction to distraction. He posits that there is a need to change the perception of advertising and how women are perceived by upping the influence of women in the leadership roles of ad agencies. While that is certainly laudable, has Mr. Young taken a look at an average hour of network television and the overwhelming legion of stereotypically stupid men who populate ads ranging from household cleaning supplies and car ads to latest fixes from the pharmaceutical industry?

While Ogilvy on Advertising in the Digital Age, certainly offers some keen insight into the current state of advertising, it left me reaching for a well-thumbed copy of the original.