Ogilvy: David and his Goliaths (the graduate program to beat)

David Fox, chief executive officer of Ogilvy Australia is in the middle of making five super-charged adpeople, or Goliaths as Ogilvy Australia calls them. Of course he’s not doing this alone. Ogilvy’s head of client service, Katie Dally, came up with the idea. A panel of suits, planners and creatives chose the graduates. Let’s assume that David Fox came up with the name, Goliath. And Goliath is the (reimagined) offspring of an earlier grad program begun by now CEO of WPP, Mike Connaghan, when he was group account director, that didn’t survive Ogilvy’s growth spurt in the early 2000s.

Its aim is simple, to nurture adpeople who are able to “make brands matter”. Its requirements are not. You noticed the name of the program is Goliath, yes?

Its rationale is humble. “It seems hypocritical for an agency to say how important its people are and not worry about feeding that stream of new talent. It seems hypocritical to pick and steal your talent without nurturing them,” Fox noted.

David Fox

Each Goliath graduate gets 15 weeks getting know the business of advertising and the Ogilvy Australia business – three weeks in various parts of the agency so that they become well-rounded Goliaths, six weeks on a live brief for a real client so they can conquer their first giant challenge and six weeks on a live brief for a mystery client, to stretch their Goliath skills.

“Then, you’ll have the rest of the year to build your own, mini agency (named Goliath), into the next industry giant, while working as part of the Ogilvy team on real business.” At the end of the program, the young Goliaths are given guaranteed Ogilvy jobs. That job might even be a role the Goliath hadn’t thought of. Part of the program is finding out where each Goliath will soar.

Do not imagine that this is the soft path into the business of advertising. Ogilvy is not looking to create also-rans. It’s looking to nurture the greats. Not one creative who applied made it into this year’s program. Four account service hopefuls did, plus one planner. The application process is tough.

And “you get no free kicks here,” Fox tells his graduates. “You have to work your arse off, so don’t think that because we’ve brought you in, it’s job done. It’s a competitive environment. Advertising is a competitive environment. We’ve got lots of good people and if you don’t like hard work, you’re in the wrong industry.”

To even make it into the application process your first task was to create a video response to “show us you don’t have an ego.”

“We have a “no dickheads allowed” policy that we brought in a few years ago. Obviously there are people here, who are passionate about what they do,” Fox explained, “but we don’t have any priorities to have big egos in this agency, We don’t need them. Ego doesn’t work any more. And it’s all bullshit.”

107 graduates gave that challenge a go. 25 made it through a series of extra questions and a live presentation to the shortlist.

Those who conquered every challenge were the ones who showed Ogilvy that they were original thinkers, performed and behaved well under pressure, looked past the mundane to do things that were unexpected, interesting and relevant to the challenge, showed they could rethink challenges for Ogilvy clients and were able to take complicated problems and solve them with simplicity. Five young people did.

It’s early days, but Fox is very happy with the success of the program so far. “They’re all still here,” he joked.

“I sense that they fitted in culturally straight away. I hope that’s because our culture allows it,” he added.

Another benefit of being a young Turk at Ogilvy is that your point of view is encouraged. “We want young people to feel comfortable enough to share their opinion. If you don’t have a point of view, you don’t have a seat at the table. That’s what our clients are paying us to provide.”

Advertising is all about selling. One of the challenges that young account service hopefuls are given in their application interview is to sell an Ogilvy campaign they’re shown. The Stable asked Fox to sell Goliath.

This is what he said. “It’s like top gun. It’s the best of the best. If you can get into this program through pretty rigorous challenges and very tough judges, you’ve got to the #1 rung on the ladder of a company that has been Cannes’ best agency of the year five years running and most effective agency of the year for four. Get through and you’re a valuable part of a company that’s global and likely to welcome you into any Ogilvy agency in the world. The world, then, is your oyster.”

Want to know what it’s like to be a Goliath? That story is coming soon. Keep your eye on The Stable’s daily uploads.

Want to know if you could be a Goliath? Here’s the work to aspire to doing: