The founder of world famous advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather had in the past written a bestseller, Confessions of an Advertising Man. Multimedia, a publishing outfit who packaged books for the trade, had approached Ogilvy and asked if he would consider doing a new updated version. This idea was enthusiastically received and became Ogilvy on Advertising. Ogilvy was then known as the ‘Pope of Advertising’. I was tasked with visiting him in person in his Paris office to show page examples. After a good meeting he showed me to his private lift and one of his employees visibly shrank back into his room in reverence when he saw Ogilvy coming.

The original cover design was well received and looked like being a winner. Unfortunately it was based on the eye-grabbing ‘Tide’ detergent pack unaware that ‘Tide’ was a Lever Brothers product, arch rivals of Proctor & Gamble one of Ogilvy’s major clients whose own detergent brand ‘Rinso’ was in competition. It meant they could not possibly use a reference to the other leading brand on the cover, so it was mothballed and never saw light of day