it’s never easy doing creative work for the company you work for, especially if it is an ad agency. It can take years to get done. At Ogilvy, it was a creative person’s biggest fear was that David Ogilvy himself might fire off a scathing criticism when a produced piece landed on his desk.

Fortunately for me he liked this promotional folio for Ogilvy & Mather Direct. I got to have a few chats with him and was honored that he remembered me, not by name, but as one of the Direct marketing people. He would quote himself whenever he taled with one of us. “Direct marketing! My first love and secret weapon.”

I also started a series of booklets that featured case histories of our most successful and interesting direct marketing learning that was distributed to the global network. I titled it We Sell, or Else. David loved it and said it was brilliant. I revealed that I swiped it from a foreword he had written and elevated to the cover. He reacted with another of his quotes, “if you steal, steal from the best.”