Like every year, we wanted to stand out with our Holiday Greetings. An eventful year at Ogilvy had come to an end, a lot of innovations were due. It was important for us to show our clients and business partners with our Holiday Greetings that a lot stays the same with us, much as it ever was.

Apart from these requirements, we wanted our Season’s Greetings to be perfectly “Ogilvy”: creative with a simple and convincing idea – and full of Ogilvy spirit and heritage.

We wanted to show that a lot remains with us, much as it ever was. That’s why our Christmas Greetings this year was coming from our oldest staff member: David Ogilvy.

Nothing was more obvious than going back to our tradition-steeped founder for our Christmas wishes as he was an advertising legend as well as an advocate of open words and clear instructions. There are countless documents of his work. David tells us, how to do it right.

We used his origin voice and advise to communicate: "Ogilvy wishes you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.“

This ironic film is applying David’s How-to-Wisdom to our Season’s Greetings. It produces a charming comedy which presents a pleasant example of corporate culture.

About a week before Christmas 2014, clients and business partners of Ogilvy & Mather Germany received an email from david.ogilvy@ogilvy.de, linking to the film. They could listen to David’s origin voice and pointed quotations, perfectly combined with a typographic animation.

Rarely we have received as much feedback to Holiday Greetings as in this year. A Christmas card is usually taken notice of and then disposed. Things were different with our Christmas greeting 2014. We received thrilled email replies and well into the new year clients and business partners kept asking us about our Christmas card, sometimes during first personal meetings in the year. They were smiling and praising the card.

Response rate 37.5%

15 calls from prospective clients

3 new businesses converted - until now