Ogilvy & Mather
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| Type | Subsidiary of WPP Group |
|---|---|
| Founded |  New York, New York(1948) |
| Headquarters | New York, New York, USA |
| Industry | Advertising, Marketing, Public Relations |
| Subsidiaries | OgilvyOne Worldwide OgilvyInteractive Ogilvy PR Ogilvy Healthworld OgilvyAction Neo@Ogilvy |
| Website | www.ogilvy.com |
Ogilvy & Mather is an international advertising, marketing, and public relations agency based in New York City and owned by the WPP Group. The company operates 497 offices in 125 countries around the world and employs approximately 16,000 professionals.
Ogilvy & Mather has seven divisions: (CRM and interactive), OgilvyInteractive (interactive; under OgilvyOne), Neo@Ogilvy (digital and direct media; under OgilvyOne), Ogilvy PR (public relations), Ogilvy Healthworld (health care communications and marketing), and OgilvyAction (consumer promotion and experiential marketing).
The chairperson of Ogilvy is Rochelle B. (Shelly) Lazarus, who has held the position since 1996.[1]. She was also CEO until the end of 2008, when she was succeeded by Miles Young.
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[edit] History
Ogilvy & Mather was founded in 1948 by David Ogilvy, as "Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson & Mather." The company became a leading worldwide agency by the 1960s.[citation needed] Central to its growth was its strategy of building brands like American Express, BP, Ford, Barbie, Maxwell House, IBM, Kodak, Nestlé and Unilever brands Pond's & Dove. [3]
Integrated in the firm's corporate culture is Ogilvy's concept of "360 Degree Brand Stewardship", defined as "a willingness to use the broadest array of tools and techniques to understand, develop and enhance the relationship between a consumer and a brand." [2]
Shona Seifert and Thomas Early, two former directors of Ogilvy & Mather, were convicted in 2005 of one count of conspiring to defraud the government and nine counts of filing false claims for Ogilvy overbilling adverstising work done for the US Office of National Drug Control Policy account. In an email, Seifert stated "I'll wring the money out of [the ONDCP], I promise". Seifert and Early were sentenced to 18 and 14 months in prison, respectively. Seifert was also ordered to pay a $125,000 fine, in addition to writing a "code of ethics" for the ad industry as part of 400 hours of community service. Ogilvy & Mather repaid $1.8 million to the government to settle a civil suit based on the same billing issues and continues to produce anti-drug spots for the government.[3][4][5][6]
In 2004 the OgilvyOne division launched a digital summit called Verge.[7]. This has become a major agency-led forum for clients and industry experts to discuss the challenges and possibilities of digital marketing. The agency has taken the conference to over 20 of the world's leading markets.[8] In documents made available to the public through the tobacco industry's 1998 Master Settlement Agreement, Ogilvy and Mather played a key role in promoting the image of the Tobacco Institute.
[edit] Areas of Operation
There are Ogilvy PR offices in eight cities in the United States — Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, Sacramento, San Francisco and Washington, DC. The company owns three subsidiary agencies: Ogilvy Government Relations in Washington, DC; Feinstein Kean Healthcare, in Cambridge, MA, and San Francisco, CA, specializing in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and molecular medicine; and B/W/R, an agency specializing in entertainment with offices in Beverly Hills, CA and New York, NY.
Ogilvy PR had 67 offices throughout the world and 22 offices in Europe, along with six in India, nine in East Asia, 10 in the Middle East and Africa, six in Latin America and six in the Pacific/Australia region. The 2007 Agency Business Report in PRWeek said, “Ogilvy is an agency truly known for its genuine and broad global reach. . . . Ogilvy PR is one of the few agencies that has a meaningful presence in every global region.”[citation needed]
[edit] Clients
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[edit] Notable Campaigns
In 1975, David Ogilvy developed the "Don't Leave Home Without It" ad campaign for American Express Traveler's Cheques, featuring Oscar Award-winning actor Karl Malden. Malden was the public face of American Express Travelers Cheques for twenty-five years, acting as television cop who advised travelers to carry the cheques. These ads ended with a call to action: "Don't let a thief spoil your vacation. Get American Express Travelers Cheques. Don't leave home without them." The "Don't Leave Home Without It" slogan was revived in 2005 for the prepaid American Express Travelers Cheque Card.
Ogilvy caused some controversy in 2004 when a discarded video advertisement for the Ford SportKa hatchback began spreading virally via email. The 40-second video, which shows a lifelike computer-generated cat being decapitated by the car's sunroof was rejected by Ford, but still managed to make its way onto the internet, sparking outrage among bloggers and animal rights groups.[9][10]
After Karl Malden's departure, American Express continued to feature celebrities. A typical ad, like one with Jerry Seinfeld navigating English comedy, never mentioned the celebrity’s name, just showed it on his AmEx card. Recently, Ogilvy has been marketing the credit card with the “My Life, My Card” campaign that features celebrities like Martin Scorsese [4], Robert DeNiro [5], Wes Anderson [6], and Ken Watanabe.
Ogilvy have also been involved with the notorious Asia Pulp & Paper, a large logging company that has been convicted of illegal logging in three countries, and has recently built roads illegally into the last remaining habitats of the critically endangered Sumatran Tiger, but spent large sums on global advertising campaigns claiming 'sustainability beyond compliance'.[11] Following breaches of local law in February 2008, a group of environmental organisations have called for all businesses to cease connections with the company. Staples and Office Depot have already cut ties, though Ogilvy are thought to still be involved with the company.[citation needed]
The company was involved with a controversy in May 2009 when a Clio Award was given to a campaign for A&E's History Channel. One of the associated images compared the American deaths at Pearl Harbor with the Japanese deaths after the bombing of Hiroshima.[12]
[edit] Advertising on the Internet
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Wikinews has related news: Dove ad viewed more than 3 million times on YouTube |
Dove Evolution In 2006, Ogilvy Toronto released a new campaign for the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty entitled Evolution [7]. It has been viewed by over twelve million people. A copywriter from Ogilvy Toronto, uploaded the advertisement to video sharing website YouTube. The video won the Cyber Lion Grand Prix and the Film Grand Prix at the Cannes Lion Awards in 2007. The video's Cannes synopsis reads: "We created a film that exposed the manipulation of the female image in the media. The objective was to encourage discussion around the subject of real beauty and lead people to the Campaign for Real Beauty website." [13]
Motorola, 2006 Motorola, 2006 When Motorola launched a new line of youth-oriented mobile phones in China, Ogilvy didn't focus on ads for TV, newspapers or magazines. Instead, it hired a pair of Chinese college students, dubbed the Back Dorm Boyz [8], to post home videos of themselves lip synching to pop songs on the web. The students became celebrities, and the campaign sparked a craze for online do-it-yourself lip-synching videos among Chinese youth. It also attracted young buyers to the new Motorola phones, and sales increased 270%. A related lip-synching and song re-mixing competition had 14 million page views in the first month, with traffic at one point crashing the site. Visitors cast more than 1.3 million votes to determine the winner of the contest [9]. The campaign also received Gold at the Asian Marketing Effectiveness Awards.
Which Side Are You On? (Lenovo, 2005) Which Side Are You On? (Lenovo, 2005) To support the launch of Lenovo's first-ever widescreen ThinkPad notebook, Ogilvy developed the "Which Side Are You On?" global viral campaign. This website asked people to vote for the classic matte black finish or the newly-launched titanium finish of the notebooks. The campaign has been discussed on nearly 140 blogs worldwide and the website has been viewed by people in 129 countries. 'Persuadatron' aided participants' engagement on the site, enabling users to send customized spoken messages to sway the votes of their friends.
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.economist.com/people/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8736367
- ^ http://www.ogilvy.com/company/
- ^ McMains, Andrew (January 21, 2009). "Ogilvy Names John Seifert N.A. Chairman The appointment means new roles for execs Bill Gray and Carla Hendra". AdWeek. http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/e3ie135f8f41b7a1814728d8b57a0af7fec. Retrieved on 2009-06-30.
- ^ Masters, Brooke A. (January 7, 2004). "Prosecutors Say Bills Were Inflated For Anti-Drug Ads". Washington Post. http://www.prisontalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42592. Retrieved on 2009-06-30.
- ^ Zammit, Deanna (September 1, 2005). "Seifert Submits 'Code of Ethics'". Allbusiness.com. http://www.nationaljewelernetwork.com/aw/esearch/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001054237. Retrieved on 2009-06-30.
- ^ "Former Ogilvy executive Early sentenced to 14 months for role in overbilling scandal". Brand Republic. 14 July 2005. http://www.brandrepublic.com/bulletins/br/article/485084/former-ogilvy-executive-early-sentenced-14-months-role-overbilling-scandal/. Retrieved on 2009-06-30.
- ^ http://verge.ogilvy.com/Verge
- ^ http://verge.ogilvy.com
- ^ [1]
- ^ [2]
- ^ FT.com / Home UK / UK - The usefulness of scholarships and tigers
- ^ http://www.redstate.com/absentee/files/2009/05/historyjapan-1.jpg
- ^ Canneslions Live 2007
Obituary of David Ogilvy in The New York Times
Profile of Shelly Lazarus in The Economist
