32 Years Later, Checking in on Ogilvy’s Advertising Predictions
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In 1983, David Ogilvy gave the advertising world a timeless gift by penning his book, “Ogilvy on Advertising.” Ogilvy dedicated the last page of the book to a look forward in a section titled “I predict 13 changes.”
So, how did one of the industry’s best do in peering into his crystal ball? Let’s take a look:
1.) “The quality of research will improve, and this will generate a bigger corpus of knowledge as to what works and what doesn’t. Creative people will learn to exploit this knowledge, thereby improving their strike rate at the cash register.”
Yes.
One estimate is that information-generation growth will increase by 50x in the next decade. We’re generating more and more data everywhere we go, and much of it is able to be mined by parties we share it with. Self-service tools like Twitter Audience Insights and Facebook Audience Insights let anyone pull together complex market research reports in the matter of minutes.
2.) “There will be a renaissance in print advertising.”
Temporarily.
Sure, charts like this one have been passed around for the past few years:
But, when you zoom out, you’ll realize that print actually saw significant growth after Ogilvy’s prediction in the early 1980's:
Plus, best print practices often are still relied upon today in new mediums like Facebook.
All said, we’ll give Ogilvy half a point here.
3.) “Advertising will contain more information and less hot air.”
We’re getting there.
Recent years have seen many crackdowns in false advertising — making companies like Pom, Skechers, and Dannon pay up for false claims. And the FTC acted surprisingly quick to adapt to new mediums like blogs and social media in recently published guidelines. All of this should mean that advertisers choose to take a more truthful, information based route in the years ahead.
4.) “Billboards will be abolished.”
No.
Sao Paolo is the only major city to currently ban billboards, and a recent LA ban proposal was shot down. Undaunted, out of home advertising continues to grow, with billboards making up about 75% of the entire category.
5.) “The clutter of commercials on television and radio will be brought under control.”
No.
When Ogilvy made this prediction, TV commercials took up about 20% of an average hour of TV. Today, it stands closer to 35% — significant growth.
6.) “There will be a vast increase in the use of advertising by governments for purposes of education, particularly healthy education.”
Yes.
Adjusted for inflation, the U.S. Government spent $550 million on advertising in 1983.
Fast forward to 2010, and the annual budget has nearly doubled to $945 million.
Education and health make up a sizable share of spend:
7.) “Advertising will play a big part in bringing the population explosion under control.”
No.
This is a hard one to understand. This chart show that things were clearly taking off around Ogilvy’s time, but it also shows that growth rates have hardly slowed.
8.) “Candidates for political office will stop using dishonest advertising.”
No.
Here’s a timely one. Political smear campaigns have been around since our Founding Fathers, and they’re not likely to go away anytime soon. The chart below illustrates “outside spend” by election year. Outside spend includes 501c “dark money” organizations and super PACs — two groups that spend heavily on attack ads.
9.) “The quality and efficiency of advertising overseas will continue to improve — at an accelerating rate. More foreign hares will overtake the American tortoise.”
Yes.
Today, 3 of the 5 large advertising agencies (by revenue) are headquartered outside of the United States.
10.) “Several foreign agencies will open in the United States, and will prosper.”
Yes.
All three of the largest foreign agencies have strong presences in the United States (Dentsu, Publicis, and WPP Group).
11.) “Multinational manufacturers will increase their market-shares all over the non-Communist world, and will market more of their brands internationally. The advertising campaigns for these brands will emanate from the headquarters of multinational agencies, but will be adapted to respect differences in local culture.”
Yes.
One only needs to look to Big Mac’s “Big Mac Chicken Maharaja” in India, or Pringle’s Seaweed flavor in Japan, to see that multinational companies are taking customization by market very seriously.
12.) “Direct-response advertising will cease to be a separate specialty and will be folded into he ‘general’ agencies.”
Not Quite.
In the amazing video below, Ogilvy calls out direct response advertising as a “secret weapon” that more and more people will discover in the coming years.
While the work I do every day at Bamboo is direct response, the advertising world is still dominated by flashy campaigns, massive brand spends, and often lacks much consideration for success metrics linked to actual revenue. As such, new agencies have often found success in differentiating themselves by focusing on direct response campaigns — keeping this as a separate speciality.
13.) “Ways will be found to produce effective television commercials at a more sensible cost.”
Yes.
We’ll give this to Ogilvy since his prediction is about finding “ways”. Options have been uncovered in recent years — user generated media being most prominent.
While ways have been found to produce at more sensible, that doesn’t mean costs have actually dropped. A recent $33 million dollar production for Chanel comes to mind, and that’s not to mention placement costs — now up to half a million dollars for a 30-second placement on a show like NBC Sunday Night Football.
How did Ogilvy do? We’ll deem 7 of his 13 predictions to be accurate (6 fully, 2 partially). That’s a 0.538 batting average — exceptional by all measures.
Ogilvy wins again.
I'm building Bamboo, a user acquisition agency focused on helping mobile companies grow. Get in touch: sauterdj@gmail.comFollow me on Twitter: @DannySauter
