Ogilvy is a New York City-based British advertising, marketing, and public relations agency. It was founded in 1850 by Edmund Mather as a London-based agency. In 1964, the firm became known as Ogilvy & Mather after merging with a New York City agency that was founded in 1948 by David Ogilvy.
The agency is part of the WPP Group global agency network. It provides services in five areas: growth and innovation; advertising, brand and content; public relations and influence; experience; and health. It also operates a strategy division Ogilvy Consulting.
History
Foundation
The agency was founded in London in 1850, when Edmund Charles Mather began an advertising agency on Fleet Street. By the 1860s, Mather had a U.S. branch called Mather & Abbott at 335 Broadway, New York City. After Mather's death in 1886, his son, Harley Lawrence Mather, partnered with Herbert Oakes Crowther, and the London agency became known as Mather & Crowther. The agency pioneered newspaper advertising, which was in its infancy, due to a loosening of tax restrictions; and educated manufacturers about the efficacy of advertising while producing "how-to" manuals for the nascent advertising industry. The company grew in prominence in the 1920s after creating leading non-branded advertising campaigns such as "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" and "Drinka Pinta Milka Day".
In 1921, Mather and Crowther hired Francis Ogilvy as a copywriter. Ogilvy eventually became the first non-family member to chair the agency. When the agency launched the AGA cooker, a Swedish cook stove, Francis composed letters in Greek to appeal to British public schools, the appliance's best sales leads. Francis also helped his younger brother, David Ogilvy, secure a position as an AGA salesman. The younger Ogilvy was so successful at selling the cooker, he wrote a sales manual for the company in 1935 called "The Theory and Practice of Selling the Aga Cooker". It was later called "probably the best sales manual ever written", by Fortune magazine.
David Ogilvy sent the manual to Francis who was persuaded to hire him as a trainee. Ogilvy began studying advertising, particularly campaigns from America, which he viewed as the gold standard. In 1938, David Ogilvy convinced Francis to send him to the United States on sabbatical to study American advertising. After a year, Ogilvy presented 32 "basic rules of good advertising" to Mather & Crowther. Over the next ten years, Ogilvy worked in research at the Gallup polling company, worked for British Intelligence during World War II, and then spent a few years farming among the Amish community in Pennsylvania.
In 1948, David Ogilvy proposed that Mather & Crowther and another U.K. agency, S.H. Benson, partner to create an American advertising agency in New York City to support British advertising clients. The agencies each invested US$40,000 in the venture but insisted Ogilvy find a more experienced American to run it. David Ogilvy recruited Anderson Hewitt from J. Walter Thompson to serve as president and to supervise sales. Ogilvy would serve as secretary, treasurer, and research director. Along with their British sponsors, which held a controlling interest, Hewitt mortgaged his house and invested $14,000 in the agency and Ogilvy invested $6,000.
Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson & Mather
On September 23, 1948, David Ogilvy opened his New York agency as Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson, & Mather on Madison Avenue in Manhattan. Initially, Mather and Crowther and S.H. Benson gave the agency four clients that had small advertising budgets and were relatively unknown in the United States: Wedgwood China, British South African Airways, Guinness, and Bovril.
Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson, & Mather's first account was securing magazine advertising space for Wedgwood. The agency had its first successful ad with Ogilvy's concept "The Guinness Guide to Oysters", which was followed by several other similar food and Guinness pairing guides. The first large client was Sunoco (then called Sun Oil), procured by Hewitt in February 1949. Helena Rubinstein cosmetics was the first client won by Ogilvy.