Go see a pic of OJ with three legs.
My second Lies Well Disguised post is up at Gawker. (that's my fancy logo, right. for those of you lucky enough not be in the ad biz, it's an old Hathaway shirt ad by dead hack David Ogilvy, who somehow was/is considered a "genius" and "visionary").previously:
Lies Well Disguised: Advertising Week 2006.
posted by copyranter @ 4:15 PM
7 Comments:
Ogilvy is probably one of the biggest asshole of the ad biz. And because of this crappy wisdom, to this day, O&M stands for 'Overrated & Mediocre'
Ogilvy's only brand was himself. He owned what, 12 castles in France and Africa? He was OCD and used to flush his head in the toilet 8 times before he started working on his latest campaign.
Wannabe David Niven.
Is it fair to say that true genius transcends the boundaries of the genre in which the genius operates to become legend? e.g. Einstein, Edison, Picasso, Churchill, Dylan, Napolean, Poe, etc.
By that measure, this dweeb Ogilvy was a nobody -- simply some smarter-than-the-average-bear asshole who combined luck, timing and balls to sell boatloads of Coppertone or some other piece o' shit.
Whoop-dee-fucking-doo.
anon, your point is sweet about genius "transcending" genres, unfortunately, picasso was not known for his rousing rhetoric nor churchill for his painting.
but back to ogilvy: his was the only ad book i ever read and from it i took that good copywriting is honest (i'm a recovering copywriter). whether or not he accomplished that is anyone's call, but i think it's an idea that should not be dismissed because the agency is no longer cool.
he also had a great philosophy about hiring. there was a little story in one of his books that said when he hired creative directors or whatever, he'd give them a set of russian nesting dolls. in the smallest one, he'd put a little note that said, "when we hire people who are bigger than we are, we become an agency of giants." i think those are wise words. genius, no, but wise nonetheless.
an addendum: i just clicked on that ogilvy link and holyjesus that web site is a nightmarish illustration of everything that is bad and wrong with everything. wow. it's worse than i thought.
yes nina, all true. I read the book too. I'm not knocking him because he wasn't cool. I think the ads he created were flatout turn-the-page boring, truthiness or not. he made too big of an assumption that people actually wanted to read ads.
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