Stop the Spin: What Ogilvy Would Tell Brands in 2025

Let’s be honest.

If David Ogilvy were alive today, he wouldn’t be sitting in a meeting talking about ROAS or debating whether your TikTok content should be “edgy” or “authentic.”

He’d be asking you something uncomfortable:

“Do you know why your brand exists?”

Most CMOs would fumble through a deck. The founder would refer to some half-written manifesto, and the product team would change the subject to features.

Because somewhere along the way, we stopped thinking.

We started reacting.

Every quarter became a campaign, every click became a KPI, and every marketing decision was reduced to what the data told us or what the algorithm rewarded.

But here’s the problem:

You can’t optimise your way to meaning.

We’re spinning our wheels at scale

It’s 2025. The marketing stack is a mess.

AI tools everywhere. Martech bloat. Personalisation pipelines.

And yet, no one knows what their brand stands for.

Instead, they:

• Launch performance campaigns before fixing their positioning.
• Create content before clarifying their message.
• Run paid ads before understanding what they’re trying to say.

The result?

A sea of brands that look, sound, and behave exactly the same.

We’ve made everything faster.

But nothing clearer.

Ogilvy warned us decades ago.

Ogilvy wasn’t just a “mad man.” He was brutally practical.

And his ideas — ignored by most marketers chasing trends — feel more relevant now than ever.

1. “The consumer isn’t a moron. She’s your wife.”

Translation for 2025: stop dumbing everything down.

Your customer is sharp. She sees through your “limited time offer.” She scrolls past your AI-generated Instagram caption. She knows when your brand is trying too hard.

People don’t want ads.

They want relevance. Meaning. Consistency.

2. “What you say is more important than how you say it.”

In today’s world, this feels like a direct jab at the entire ecosystem.

Design is everywhere. Tools are better than ever. Creatives are churning.

But 90% of what’s out there says nothing at all.

Don’t obsess over making it beautiful until you make it make sense.

3. “Don’t bunt. Aim out of the ballpark.”

Safe marketing is expensive marketing.

And right now, most brands are afraid. Afraid to commit to a position.

Afraid to exclude. Afraid to actually have a point of view.

Ogilvy would’ve told you to stop writing for everyone.

And start standing for something.

Why does this still happen?

Simple.

Because no one is creating space to step back.

• We hire people to optimise, not to challenge.
• We plan in quarters, not in arcs.
• We chase the next channel before we fix the message.

Everyone’s stuck in tactical quicksand.

We’ve forgotten how to think strategically.

Not because we’re incapable, but because we’re drowning in urgency.

You don’t need a rebrand. You need a reason.

I’ve seen this play out too many times:

Startup raises.

Growth plateaus.

Board gets anxious.

Founder hires a new CMO.

First thing on the list? “We need a fresh campaign.”

But you don’t need new creative.

You need to answer the old question:

Why do we exist?

Not the 80-slide-brand-book version.

The real version.

• Why would your best customer miss you if you disappeared?
• What do you do that no one else does, or can do like you?
• What change are you here to make in the market?

If you can’t answer that, no funnel, no ad, no tactic will save you.

Ogilvy’s most significant lesson wasn’t about copywriting — it was about discipline.

He believed in research.

In understanding people.

In telling the truth — and telling it well.

But above all, he believed in clarity.

And in 2025, clarity is the most underutilised competitive advantage on the planet.

Every brand wants performance.

But few want to pause.

To gut-check the fundamentals.

• Who are we for?
• What do we want people to feel?
• What are we building towards — not just this quarter, but in the long run?

It’s not sexy.

It doesn’t fit in a dashboard.

But it’s the difference between brands that last and brands that die on slide 14 of an investor deck.

So where do you start?

No frameworks. No jargon. Just this:

Take one week. Step out of execution mode.

• Pull together your leadership team.
• Write down the five most painful truths about your market.
• Then write down the one thing your brand does — or could do — that no one else is willing to commit to.
• That’s your signal. Now build around it.

Strip away everything else.

Tactics. Tools. Timelines.

Find your edge.

Say something worth hearing.

And then — say it with conviction.

Because in a world full of noise, conviction still cuts through.