My favorite Ogilvy Quotes

Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon.

A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.

Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.

Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image.

I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment; they are coming to rely too much on research, and they use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post for support, rather than for illumination.

If it doesn't sell, it isn't creative.

Many manufacturers secretly question whether advertising really sells their product, but are vaguely afraid that their competitors might steal a march on them if they stopped.

Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn't sell much of anything.

Turning GReeN with envy!!

everybody's turning green...green in their logos,tags,colors,statements, advertisements...but how green are you actually? how much does it really matter to your customer that you are green? does he or she even care or buy because you are green? do you genuinely care about going green and does your customer believe that you are genuinely green?

so whats the next color after green since, everyone's turning green and its getting monoton(e)ous?? where's/what's the next differentiator in your marketing communication??

What is branding??

Everyday I ask myself this question and everyday I hope to discover something new to complete the answer. As days go by I am sure the posts that I add will be related to answering this question.

I see that lots of companies be it ad agencies or mgmnt consultancies making a huge cry for brand strategy and the brandingimperative and in the process setting up dedicated units to cater to the same.It's like the flavour of the season. I wonder if they do understand the role of branding and the realms that branding can extend into in an organisation.

If one company redoes it's logo and make a huge cry of the so called branding exercise..competitors feel threatened and decide it is time we did the same...the me too mentality as we call it.The snazzy 2.0 version.

Branding is not just a cool logo, or attractive colors or even great packaging.It's also not about a catchy tag line!! While these are important they are just the tip of the iceberg, the portion that is visible to the world. For me branding in this decade and the ones to come, is about the substantial portion of the iceberg that is not visible and is hidden to the eye. The portion that can potentially sink your company's ship.

Consulting in my opinion is bridging or merging the bigger picture with ground reality. It's about finding the right proportions of the two, to find solutions that add value and create meaning for the customer

My Quote

"the hollower the trunk,louder the sound"...any parallels to smooth talking suave consultants??

Second Innings

i start my second job in brand strategy in a firm whose claim to fame has been it's much trumpeted branding exercise of an Indian IT giant....any guesses?? will be interesting to see how this place is as compared to my previous company..in terms of culture, people and work...