Mumbai: Ogilvy went through a global shake-up of its business, involving a rebrand and restructure, as well as a redesigned logo.
Seventy years to the day after copywriter David Ogilvy launched his own agency in Manhattan, the company has announced its “refounding” that promises to deliver on its tagline, ‘Make Brands Matter’. David Ogilvy’s signature has been dumped as the network’s logo.
Along with this new positioning comes a new organizational structure, consultancy practice, logo, new color scheme, website, digital platform and employee video.
The agency’s brands, OgilvyOne, Ogilvy & Mather advertising and Ogilvy Public Relations, plus its sub-brands, will now all be merged under the same P&L and “common identity”.
The network will now function around six units, which include brand strategy; advertising; customer engagement and commerce; earned influence and public relations; digital transformation; and partnerships.
The capabilities structure will replace sub-brands within Ogilvy, with employees’ roles and job titles now centered around “crafts,” such as client service, data or business development.
The WPP-owned agency is also rebranding its OgilvyRED strategy division to Ogilvy Consulting as it looks to better compete with the consultancy businesses that are encroaching on adland.
“This has been an 18 month journey for our brand and the largest transformation in the history of our agency,” said Ogilvy Group global CEO John Seifert.
“To meet the changing needs of our clients, we’re taking a bold step to redefine our company and build a new model for our industry, which we helped to create over 70 years ago.”
“In my view, if we were going to stand apart we needed to clarify what the Ogilvy brand promise was, what its purpose was and we needed to greatly simplify the organisation around what I call an integrated enterprise agenda, not a holding company of all these different piece-parts.” added Seifert.
Ogilvy is launching a software platform called Connect, to help employees across the network collaborate.The business is also commiting itself to furthering diversity, setting out a goal that 50% of Ogilvy’s leadership, who will assume “partner” roles under the new structure, will be women in the next 24 months, up from 36% currently.
David Ogilvy’s signature was adopted as the agency’s logo in 1999, a month after the legendary adman passed away at the age of 88 and a year after the company’s 50th anniversary.
