David Ogilvy wanted to know if you were the greatest creative director by posing 37 questions in which you had to honestly answer yes to every single one.
30-years on, should will still be answering ‘yes’ to all of his questions
ARE YOU THE GREATEST?
1. Are you creating the most remarkable advertising in your country?
2. Is this generally recognised, inside and outside your agency?
3. Can you show new-business prospects at least four campaigns which will electrify them?
4. Have you stopped over-loading commercials?
5. Have you stopped singing the sales-pitch?
6. Do all your commercials start with a visual grabber?
7. Have you stopped using cartoon characters when selling to adults?
8. Do you show at least six Magic Lanterns to everyone who joins your staff?
9. If they don’t understand English, have you had all the Lanterns translated into their language?
10. Do you repeat the brand-name several times in every commercial?
11. Have you stopped using celebrity testimonials in television commercials?
12. Have you got a list of red-hot creative people in other agencies, ready for the day you can afford to hire them?
13. Do all your campaigns execute an agreed positioning?
14. Do they promise a benefit- which has been tested?
15. Do you always super the promise at least twice in every commercial?
16. Have you had at least three Big Ideas in the last six months?
17. Do you always make the product the hero?
18. Are you going to win more creative awards than any other agency this year?
19. Do you use problem-solution, humour, relevant characters, slice-of-life?
20. Do you eschew life-style commercials?
21. Do your people gladly work nights and weekends?
22. Are you good at injecting news into your campaign?
23. Do you always show the product in use?
24. Does your house-reel include some commercials with irresistible charm?
25. Do you always show the package at the end?
26. Have you stopped using visual clichés—like sunsets and happy families at a dinner table? Do you use lots of visual surprises?
27. Do the illustrations in your print advertisements contain story-appeal?
28. Are you phasing out addy layouts and moving to editorial layouts?
29. Do you sometimes use visualised contrast?
30. Do all your headlines contain the brand name and the promise?
31. Are all your illustrations photographs?
32. Have you stopped setting copy ragged left and right?
33. Have you stopped using more than 40 characters in a line of copy?
34. Have you stopped setting copy smaller than 10-point and bigger than 12-point?
35. Do you always paste advertisements into magazines or newspapers before you OK them?
36. Have you stopped setting body-copy in sans-serif?
37. Have you stopped beating your wife?
• If you have answered YES to all these questions, you are the greatest creative director on earth.
Erm thats a huge list and if you stay that rigid, technically could you ever become the greatest CD? I'm not sure, granted he's a legend, and I won't bash him for anything he's done, but as like Bernbach with creating teams etc. Is this world we live in now more fluid and exciting than rigid and predictable?
I like chance, not knowing and going with the flow.