A titan, a star - David Ogilvy:

22 July 1999

British-born David began life as a social worker, moved on to be a chef's apprentice in Paris and then began  selling ovens, door to door, in England. In 1936, his brother got him an internship with one of London's large advertising firms - Mather & Crowley - from where he began his tryst with the ad world. It was here that he also met his life partner.

After a stint with the research giant, Gallup, and a stint with the military intelligence during the war, David Ogilvy moved to New York. Here, in 1948, he founded the agency, Hewitt Ogilvy Benson & Mather.  Starting with a staff of two it was a struggle in the initial years. It was not until 1951, when he got the account for C.H. Hathaway, a small-time shirt maker, that his legendary rise in the advertising field began.

After going through no less than 18 copy drafts, Ogilvy came up with the winning idea of the man with the eyepatch. With this mysterious character, he helped Hathaway increase its sales fourfold. So successful was this campaign that it ran for 25 years. This was only the beginning.

To follow were equally powerful campaigns - each of which went on to create a legend out of a brand. If the "ambassador from Schweppes" helped increase sales by over five hundred per cent at the beverage giant, the line  "at 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock" became the most famous headline ever written for an automobile. From then on it was a roller coaster. Lever Bros, American Express, Shell, General Foods ... the list became endless.

The agency grew rapidly to gain prominence in the advertising world. In 1965 he merged the agency with his backers - Ogilvy & Crowley - to form a new international company. In 1989 the Ogilvy group was bought over by WPP, an English company and the world's largest communications company.