I’m Joint Worldwide Planning Director, and I’ve been with Ogilvy since 1999.
The reason our business seems so exhilarating (and scary) today is that we truly are inventing a new type of marketing. For much of my career the dominant idea was "Disruption." (Remember all that talk of “cutting through the clutter”?) Given the way people can organize their media now, it suddenly seems a very redundant notion.
I think we’re now entering an era of "Give to Get" marketing. Today, brands have to give something to in order to get something. As marketers, we’re trying to get attention, love and sales for our brands. In return, a brand can give in the form of entertainment, information, tools or social networks. Anything, really. Figuring out this exchange is the is the new creativity.
David Ogilvy understood this principle when he wrote the Guinness Guide to Oysters print ad. It seems simple, but it’s a profoundly different way of thinking.
To make the exchange work, we have to understand what people value most at different moments in their lives. That’s why Planning is more important than ever.
One of the highlights of my time at Ogilvy was working on BP’s "Beyond Petroleum" campaign. It was my first account. I think it changed the way companies speak to the public forever.
My favorite David Ogilvy quote is: “There is no need for advertisements to look like advertisements. If you make them look like editorial pages, you will attract about fifty percent more readers.” (See above!)