My Days of .Com
Future of Interactive Advertising

Future. Take two. The mailman always rings…

Written by Mihai Dragan on Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009 ( One response )
Tags: advertising, direct mailing, ogilvy, targeting

In his legendary “Ogilvy on Advertising”, David Ogilvy had a very interesting opening sentence in his direct mail chapter:

“One day a man walked into a London agency and asked to see the boss. He had bought a country house and was about to open a hotel. Could the agency help him to get customers? He had $500 to spend. Not surprisingly, the head of the agency turned him over to the office boy, who append to be the author of this book. I invested money in penny postcards and mailed them to well-heeled people living in the neighborhood. Six weeks later the hotel opened to a full house. I had tasted blood.”

Ogilvy fell inlove with direct mailing and he later mentions the wonders he has witnessed over the years: computers. He shows enthusiasm in how can they be used to select names by demographic classification, by frequency or amount of purchase. The man is thrilled at the idea he can merge and purge lists, send personal mails and many others we now take for granted as the internet evolved. Have I mentioned we are talking about 1983?

He is also known for his clear and to the point copywriting, for inserting coupons encouraging readers to “buy now” or send feedback to companies.

With his focus on targeting, filtering, measuring and interacting with consumers Ogilvy built one of the biggest agencies in the world and probably the most popular.

But that was then …

[to be continued]