Devika Bulchandani on Revitalising The Reputation of Ogilvy

In his much-celebrated book, Ogilvy on Advertising, David Ogilvy explained that when he hired new executives to lead an office he would give each one a Russian doll. Inside the last and smallest doll was a message: “If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs, but if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, Ogilvy & Mather will become a company of giants.”

His current successor, Ogilvy global chief executive Devika Bulchandani, has been paying attention during her nearly two years in charge, which have already brought the agency a great deal of renewed success, leading it most recently to be named as Network of the Year at Cannes Lions.

“I didn’t come to Ogilvy to take the job as global CEO to change Ogilvy, because the foundations of Ogilvy are still strong,” she retorts when asked about the revitalisation that arguably the advertising sector’s most famous agency brand has experienced of late.

Since taking over the running of the Ogilvy network globally in September 2022, the business, with over 130 offices based in 93 countries, has begun to reclaim its former glory as a creative powerhouse. This year so far it has won creative accounts with Hy-Vee’s health brands, which include RedBox Rx, Vivid Clear Rx, Amber Specialty Pharmacy and Hy-Vee Health Infusion Care, as well as Molson Coors in the UK, while picking up various other network awards along the way.

In March, perhaps surprisingly, it announced the return of its direct marketing brand Ogilvy One, which is being led by network veteran Kent Wertime, who will also continue as co-CEO for Ogilvy APAC.

“Ogilvy is about creativity,” continues Bulchandani. “The form of creativity can keep changing but it’s been in the DNA of this company long before I got here. Ogilvy has always been about innovation – David Ogilvy talked about divine discontent, but he created direct marketing… it’s in Ogilvy’s DNA to keep evolving.”

Part of her plan has been to create a culture across the business that allows for debate and friction to help generate new ideas in her “pursuit of greatness” for the network. And while she wants Ogilvy to be proclaimed as “the best in the world”, she also doesn’t want to forget the narrative around the people who are taking it to that position while achieving greatness for client brands.

“You've got to make it simple and you've got to make it inspiring, and you've got to make it so easy that nobody says 'I can choose [to say] no'.’”

A pioneering global leadership team

Bulchandani highlights leadership as being fundamental to the operational tactics of getting the business back in shape. Ogilvy’s global leadership has taken shape, through the building of a team of highly-experienced executives, many of whom have been within the network for years, and who also happen to be women.

She believes that it is the only agency network where both the CEO and the chief creative officer have been women. That global CCO she refers to is the returning Liz Taylor, who rejoined in 2021, forming a partnership that is already bearing fruit. Bulchandani describes Taylor as having proven herself to be “the very best in the world”.

Within the leadership of the business there are several other women too: UK chief strategy officer Jo Arden; UK chief financial officer Karla Smith; the president of Ogilvy New York Darla Price (who has Samira Ansari as her CCO); and COO for North America Carina De Blois.

“I want to be a place where personalities can shine not where we bring people in and make them into the lowest common denominator of their self.”

A vital member of that global leadership team is Ogilvy UK chief executive Fiona Gordon, who Bulchandani cites as helping progress the network, with the European presence on the march again too.

Gordon praises the passionate focus on clients and the newfound ambition of the work under the ‘Borderless Creativity’ mantra that has been placed by both Bulchandani and Taylor upon the agency.

“That combination of loving clients and just loving what we do, and then having incredible energy about it, that just makes everyone feel excited about the potential,” states Gordon, who goes on to cite the weekly meetings of the Global Creative Council (as well as other regular international departmental meetings) as having broken down internal silos across the network and forming a “truly global community”.

As a result, Gordon sees a new culture of belief where anything is possible, which has energised the interaction around clients, and is led from the top.

Bulchandani reveals that she has made it her daily mission to communicate with at least three clients every day somehow, be that through a meeting or even a text.

Another recent element of change, especially within the UK team, is that the behaviourial scientists employed by Ogilvy have become more central to campaign planning from the start, Gordon explains.

"So from thinking about what are the insights that will actually change behavior, what psychologically is happening with people that makes them do something," which is done alongside the creative team, including creative technologists.

An example of that is a campaign for Philadelphia cream cheese and the brand platform 'You've Got a Friend in Philly' based around the insight that because of the nurturing from milk as babies, there is a comfort for people in dairy food that helps them form friendships over a snack.

An agency brand with affection

Alongside Network of the Year, there was a plethora of other accolades for Ogilvy in Cannes this year, with Ogilvy New York ranked among the top three agencies in the world, while Ogilvy Asia was recognised as Regional Network of the Year for Asia.

And those wins helped its parent company WPP to claim the Creative Company of the Year honour, while The Coca-Cola Company was named Brand of the Year with numerous campaigns created by WPP Open X, in which Ogilvy plays a major role. Meanwhile, one of its longest-standing clients, Unilever, was honoured as the Marketer of the Year.

“Our business is not very complicated in some ways,” Bulchandani states when explaining the need to be focused on client success. “It's that discipline to say that the mechanism for our business is the work that we do for our clients and through that a focus and obsessiveness about our clients' business. It’s not the focus and obsessiveness about the slides of 'what is the strategy of our business'. We had all that locked and loaded years ago and I am not changing a word on it because we don't need to sit and debate this now - let's execute for our clients!”

And the resurgence of Ogilvy has not been lost on WPP chief executive Mark Read who has regularly referred to the agency as being a positive note for the whole business over the last year.

Read describes Bulchandani as “a force of nature” who holds a belief in the power of great creative work and the industry’s ability to solve client problems.

“She wants to win,” he says, adding that he believes there to be a new sense of purpose across the leadership team under Balchandani as well.

“There’s a lot of affection in our industry for Ogilvy, as there should be. David Ogilvy created an amazing company. He spoke a lot of sense on a lot of topics and in a sense Dev has brought it back to its rightful place, but it’s easy to say that in hindsight, it’s much harder to do it in reality. She has brought an energy to the business, a sense of self-belief as well as some fun and some joy. She wants to win, but she takes her team with her as well,” adds Read.

Lauding the network, the outgoing chief marketing officer for longstanding client Dove, Alessandro Manfredi, cites the long-term partnership as being a major factor in the success of the 'Campaign for Real Beauty' over the last 20 years. He says the agency’s ability to adapt at speed is one of the reasons it was able to produce the '#TurnYourBack campaign' within 72 hours. That won a Grand Prix and Gold for Creative Effectiveness at Cannes.

“It exemplifies the power of collaboration and a rapid, creative response to what’s happening in culture. You can see why they won Network of the Year,” Manfredi adds.

And that spirit to win has only gotten stronger as Balchandani alludes to her ambition around Cannes Lions next year. “We want to win it again,” she states. “This is writing a chapter in the history books of Ogilvy but most importantly, writing a chapter about Ogilvy in the history books of the industry. So, we're not resting - day one for us started the day after Cannes.”

And while she says she believes in achieving greatness with Ogilvy, Balchandani caveats that the pursuit will also be done along with "goodness" too.

Here is a selection of the work produced by Ogilvy that won 45 awards at Cannes Lions 2024:

Gold Lion Winner for Creative Effectiveness: Dove, '#TurnYourBack'

Winner of a Gold Lion in the Entertainment-Brand or Product Integration into Music Content category: Verizon, 'Can't B Broken'

Glass - The Lion For Change Grand Prix: Unilever/Vaseline, 'Transition Body Lotion'

Titanium Lion/Grand Prix Creative B2B: JC Decaux - 'Meet Marina Prieto', created by David Madrid (part of Ogilvy)

Gold Lion, Sustainable Development Goals: FILSA Colombia in collaboration with Baylor International, 'Filter Caps'