One of greats of 20th Century advertising, David Ogilvy was born 100 years ago today. Unlike many of his contemporaries whose legacies have been submerged in a tangle of mergers and acronyms, Ogilvy’s name lives on in the agency he founded in New York in 1948 as Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson, & Mather.
The first video is a compilation of interviews with Ogilvy, where he shares many of his most famous thoughts on advertising. “My new crusade is in favour of advertising that sells. My battlecry is: we sell or else…I hope you jump on my bandwagon.”
The second video is a longer piece that captures Ogilvy in a reflective mood at his estate in Touffou, France, where he settled into retirement in 1973. Here, Ogilvy looks back on his life inside and outside of advertising.
Well, now that the dust has settled, we thought we’d have a quick look back at Portfolio Night that we held in Ogilvy’s offices on Thursday 26th May. And what an evening it was.
Many thanks to the creative directors that came from agencies across Dublin to take part. We appreciate you taking the time and no doubt you had a good chance to check out the talent on offer (careful now).
Also our heart-felt appreciation to the young creatives that turned up on the evening. You are, of course, what it’s all about. It’s great to see that, despite the challenges you have in the employment market these days, your enthusiasm remains unwavering and your talent is as prevalent as ever. I hope you got a chance to talk to everyone you needed to talk to and I hope you found the evening useful. I won’t bother asking if you enjoyed it, because you certainly looked like you did.
We’d also like to thank our showcasing contributors. The photographers, illustrators, designers, post-production houses and CGI artists that bring an extra-dimension to the Dublin Portfolio Night that you quite simply don’t get anywhere else in the world. We feel it offers a real insight to aspiring creatives to get to know the mindset of the people they’re expected to form professional relationships with. And of course, the experience they bring of having to deal with the likes of us on a regular basis. Special thanks to Steve Simpson for doing a great job of mind-mapping the evening for us in that glorious illustration.
There’s some lovely reviews of the evening from the always gracious Nick McGivney and Con Kennedy for which we are very grateful. If you’d like to see some pictures from the evening in question, click here to see the flickr stream. We have a video on the way too… promise!
And finally… a little bit of self-back slapping may be in order. The Ogilvy staff did a fantastic job on the night, making everything run like clockwork and making sure the young creatives got talking to the right people. This was our (and indeed Ireland’s) second time hosting Portfolio Night. Dare we say we improved on last year? I think so. What next year will bring is harder to predict, but we certainly haven’t lost any enthusiasm for the project. Hopefully we’ll be back, but keep following us on twitter just to make sure.
PS. Gentle reminder, if you didn’t get to Chat to Erik on the evening about Óg school, drop him a line here.
Not being a very self-congratulatory lot, we’re a little slow off the mark in keeping you up-to-date with a number of awards we’ve recently picked up.
We’re delighted to (belatedly) announce that Ogilvy has brought home a haul of Stars at this year’s APMC Star Awards. Winning campaigns were across Kellogg’s, Cadbury, Heinz, Lucozade, SCA and Smirnoff. In addition to the 4 Golds, 2 Silver and 5 Bronze Stars, Ogilvy also received the prestigious Best Creative Execution Star, and also the Grand Prix, for the best overall campaign of the year. Five of the Stars were Category Winners, which go forward to Europe to represent Ireland.
A piece we did for Paddy Power entitled ‘Michael Collins: A Martyrs Tale’ won an ICAD Bronze Bell in the Made for Online Commercial category, adding to the Shark it already clocked-up in this business year, and reenforcing our commitment to produce outstanding digital campaigns.
We also scored the NNI Press Ad of the Month for January with an ad for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, having picked up two awards at the recent NNI Press Ad of the Year 2010 awards for National Gallery Gabriel Metsu Exhibition and ISPCC Bloomsday (also a winner in the international ‘Best of Ogilvy’).
Finally, last weekend at the IDMA awards we scooped the Best FMCG and Grand Prix for Kellogg’s Field of Dreams and a silver in Best Self Promotion for the Ogilvy 3D Christmas Card.
Phew! That’s enough to keep you going. We’ll let you know if anything changes.
Child cruelty is a problem in our society. That’s a truth that every one of us recognises, a truth that’s impossible for any rational person to deny. It takes many different forms and is enacted at all levels in society. It can be verbal, physical, emotional or sexual. We all know this. We accept it exists and we do what we can when we can to help things. We don’t ignore it.
But how much do we really think about it? At what point does it become uncomfortable to do so? I know there is probably a point in my head where I accept that a child is beaten, but also a point where I draw a line under the thought. It’s human nature to avoid the detail of the cruelty because it’s not a pleasant thought and it can be too easily transposed on to people we know and love.
So is this trying to shock you? What could hope to be achieved by doing so? The truth is we need not to be shocked by this. We all need to recognise that this is how far things go all the time. This shouldn’t be something that we’re surprised to find out. We need to readjust our standards of comfort and we need to know that this is the truth.
We also need to accept that two out of every five calls to Childline go unanswered because there isn’t the resources to do so.
Every child has the right to a childhood. The ISPCC are fighting to protect that right. With your help, they’ll continue to do so.
50 years ago today (in fact, 50 years ago exactly at 7:05am this morning) Yuri Gagarin departed on the first manned mission to orbit the earth. He was therefor the first person ever to leave the earth’s atmosphere. The first person to see the earth from the outside, looking in. Some of his descriptions that came over the mission radio are truly fascinating. You can hear the excitement in his voice. Imagine being the first person ever to look through a window and see the planet looking back at you.
“I see Earth. Visibility is excellent. Rivers & folds in the terrain. Easily distinguishable. Visibility is good.”
“My condition is excellent. I feel cheerful. In the window I’m watching the Earth.”
“I can see clouds over the land. Small, cumulus, & the shadows of them. Beautiful! Beautiful! How do you read? Over”
This film is a real time recreation of Yuri Gagarin’s pioneering first orbit, shot entirely in space from on board the International Space Station. The film combines this new footage with Gagarin’s original mission audio and a new musical score by composer Philip Sheppard. Be warned: it’s the WHOLE mission. All 1 hour and 39 mins of it.
We’re delighted to announce that we’ll be hosting Dublin’s Portfolio Night for the second consecutive year running. Portfolio Night, the world’s largest simultaneous advertising portfolio review event, will take place in Ogilvy’s Dublin offices on Thursday evening, May 26th.
Devised by Toronto-based ihaveanidea.org, advertising’s intellectual archive, the event sees thousands of aspiring young advertising copywriters, art directors and designers meet with the industry’s renowned advertising creative directors in a fast-paced evening of advice, networking and recruitment. The event is designed to help students and aspiring young creatives around the world break into the advertising industry and to showcase the next generation of creative talent.
On May 26th, Portfolio Night 9 will be held simultaneously in over 40 cities around the world, from Athens to Tunis, where the best of the present meets the best of the years to come, to celebrate creative talent and to guide emerging creatives as they begin their careers in the industry.
The event is also strongly being supported by The Institute of Creative Advertising and Design (ICAD), who is reaching out to its members. In a setting similar to ‘speed-dating,’ each participant will receive three 15-minute portfolio review sessions with three of the country’s most prominent Creative Directors, who will offer them advice on improving their portfolios. The evening will also provide useful networking opportunities in break-out sessions organised on the night.
Tickets are now available for the Dublin Portfolio Night 9 event. It costs just €20 to participate and emerging creatives with an advertising portfolio must register online at www.portfolionight.com
So here’s three Cadbury Snack varieties battling it out for victory in the tea-time tussle. Ogilvy Dublin’s new promotion for Cadbury Snack includes 6-sheets, a promotional website, web banners, supermarket trolley handles and bays, 3 online games and this 40-second animation that brings the whole idea to life.
What a nice job to end the year on. The Turner Watercolours are on show from the 1st-31st January 2011 and The National Gallery of Ireland.
In 1900, Henry Vaughn passed away, and in doing so left a bequest of the most amazing collection of Turner watercolours. Thirty one delicate studies of life & light. Vaughn and been obsessed with the preservation of Turner’s work, knowing all to well the devastating effect that their constant exhibition (and subsequent exposure to sunlight) would have on the colour he had committed to paper. He commissioned a special cabinet to be constructed to provide a dedicated housing, shielding them from the elements that might rob future generations of their beauty. As he passed these treasures on to the National Gallery of Ireland, so too did he pass the baton of responsibility for their care. The condition of his bequest dictated that they could only be shown during the month of January, when the light levels are lower than they are at any other time of the year. And the Gallery has stuck faithfully to this request, each year giving cause to celebrate their beauty for the people of Ireland.
And from the darkness, light.
Concept, Art & Copy: Laurence O’Byrne & Connor O’Hare
This is the first time that the ISPCC have decided to do an outdoor advertising campaign. The brief was to create a piece of work that got people talking about the charity and their stance of ending cruelty towards children in Ireland. Christmas is a wonderfully happy time of the year for most children and we don’t like to think of the cruelty that some children will go through this Christmas. Overall we wanted to get the ISPCC top of mind of charities this Christmas.
Many thanks to James Day for shooting the photography pro-bono and to Mindshare for getting the media space to get the campaign out there this Christmas.
Broadcaster, Jimmy “The Memory Man” Magee, today launched a new campaign to raise awareness of Alzheimer’s disease and the availability of a new information booklet to help people recognise the disease and support those with the condition. The booklet, ‘Living with Alzheimer’s Disease – Understanding the disease and managing your wellbeing’, has been developed by Lundbeck (Ireland) Ltd. The launch follows recent research commissioned by Lundbeck which found that 9% of adults have experience of a friend or family member affected by Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, 29% of adults believe there is a social stigma attached to Alzheimer’s disease, with one third of over 65 year-olds believing this to be the case.
Providing general information about Alzheimer’s disease and practical advice on managing the condition, the newly launched booklet contains a large section on mental exercises to keep the brain active. In addition it focuses heavily on recognising the warning signs of Alzheimer’s disease, as opposed to changes associated with normal aging. The booklet will be distributed throughout thousands of GP waiting rooms across Ireland and is also available by calling 01 468 9800.
