Still fizzing with energy and freshness more than twenty-five years after it was first published, its success outside the private circle of friends and colleagues it was created for was, in the words of one of its editors, "because so often he spoke out on important matters long before the crowd caught up to him; because all of what he says, he says so well; because so little of what he says in the book had ever before appeared in print."

This is a business book unlike any other: a straightforward and incisive look at subjects such as salesmanship, management, and creativity, presented in Ogilvy's trademark crisp prose. Whether carefully prepared for a lecture or as a private joke to a friend, his writing always underlines the importance of the rule "it pays an agency to be imaginative and unorthodox."

David Ogilvy, CBE, (1911-1999) is often described as the "father of advertising." He founded New York agency Ogilvy & Mather in 1948, and his iconic campaigns include legendary adverts for Dove, Hathaway, Rolls Royce, and Guinness. Ogilvy's best-selling book Confessions of an Advertising Man is still one of the most popular books on advertising.