About Ogilvy & Mather

Ogilvy & Mather is an advertising agency based in New York City and owned by the WPP Group. The company operates 497 offices in 125 countries around the world.

Ogilvy & Mather works with at least 7 related network units: OgilvyOne ( CRM and interactive), OgilvyInteractive (interactive; under OgilvyOne), Neo@Ogilvy (digital and direct media; under OgilvyOne), Ogilvy Public Relations ( PR), Ogilvy Healthworld (health care communications and marketing), and OgilvyAction (analytics and experiential marketing).

As of 2007, the chairperson and CEO of Ogilvy is Rochelle B. (Shelly) Lazarus. She has been in that position since 1996. [http://www.economist.com/people/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8736367]

Ogilvy & Mather was founded in 1948 by David Ogilvy, as "Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson & Mather," and established itself as a leading worldwide agency by the 1960s. Central to its growth was its strategy of building brands like American Express, BP, Ford, Barbie, Maxwell House, IBM, Kodak, Nestlé and Unilever brands Pond's & Dove. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9902E5DF143EF931A15754C0A96F958260]

Integrated in the firm's corporate culture is Ogilvy's concept of "360 Degree Brand Stewardship", which he defined as "a willingness to use the broadest array of tools and techniques to understand, develop and enhance the relationship between a consumer and a brand." [http://www.ogilvy.com/company/]

In 2004 OgilvyOne launched a digital summit called Verge. This has become a major agency-led forum for clients and industry experts to discuss the challenges and possibilities of digital marketing. The agency has taken the conference to over 20 of the world's leading markets. [http://verge.ogilvy.com]

Also, in recent documents made avaialble to the public through the tobacco industry's 1998 Master Settlement Agreement, Ogilvy and Mather played a key role in promoting the image of the Tobacco Institute.