It’s a grainy but clear and concise summary of what Ogilvy rather heretically believed back then to be the single most important thing to know about advertising – the staggering difference between the two distinct and separate worlds of direct response and general advertising. Fortunately for us, his radical views along with his signature red braces (suspenders) were recorded for a conference he couldn’t attend but didn’t want to miss. So his message was preserved and now it’s here, for SOFII’s readers.

In extolling the benefits and learning potential of direct response Ogilvy can barely disguise his contempt for practitioners of general, unmeasured advertising, who he once described as, ‘airheads’ who prefer creating pretty pictures to generating results.

‘They know almost nothing for sure because they cannot measure the results of their advertising. They worship at the altar of creativity, which really means originality, the most dangerous word in the advertiser’s lexicon.’

After summarising how much more direct marketers know about what works and what doesn’t when compared to their better paid above-the-line counterparts, he says to the direct marketers, ‘ladies and gentlemen, I envy you’.

SOFII urges its readers to heed these wise words from a self-confessed voice in the wilderness now confirmed as a prophet. Watch, listen and learn. See also SOFII’s profile of Ogilvy, here.

Forty years later, what Ogilvy predicted has come to pass in ways he could never have foreseen. Though, the airheads are still with us and still largely unconvinced, which leaves all the more room for the rest of us to succeed. This gem is on youTube now.

SOFII thanks the great Copyblogger site for the prompt to this rich content.