JAGTAG and David Ogilvy

It is a great feeling when I see one of the things I have invented being used for something I really like. 

When my Dad was alive he used to ask me why I chose to work in marketing and advertising. I could David Ogilvyunderstand how my work developing technologies for government or products in-house at corporations made more sense to him. But, I would explain that developing technology innovations as a marketer was actually something really important and potentially of great social benefit. The notion of building digital utilities to connect consumers in deep meaningful ways with things and people they care about remains a huge point of passion for me today.

Well, this past week one of the technologies I invented (JAGTAG), connected people to a personal hero - David Ogilvy. If you don't know, David Ogilvy was a notable advertising executive. He has often been called "The Father of Advertising." In 1962, Time called him "the most sought-after wizard in today's advertising industry." He was known for a career of expanding the bounds of both creativity and morality.

So, as the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) met in San Diego, CA, last week to look at the future of the direct marketing industry, OgilvyOne Worldwide was reactivating the principles of David Ogilvy to bring creativity back to the direct response marketplace. Using the tools and techniques that have made direct marketing the hardest working discipline in the marketing tool-box, OgilvyOne is introducing “re:direct,” a movement to reinvent direct marketing in today’s digital age and reassert creativity at its core.

“When David Ogilvy first started talking about direct marketing decades ago, it was the ‘future of marketing’,” noted Mat Zucker, Executive Creative Director of OgilvyOne, New York. “Today it is still the future. We are reinterpreting what that future is with digital and creativity at the heart of our movement.”

Starting with a blog “re:direct” and in new work for clients, the agency is focusing a sharp lens on what defines creativity in the direct space and what good looks like. The blog is one of several vehicles that the agency will utilize to demonstrate how digital strategies enable not only greater ways to improve results and response, but to do it with ideas and innovation.

According to Brian Fetherstonhaugh, Chairman & CEO of OgilvyOne Worldwide, “Direct marketing has always been a great source of innovation. We need to keep innovating so that the industry’s future is even brighter than its past.”

So what about Jason Alan Snyder?

Well, demonstrating this the direct marketing in practice, Ogilvy is running a new print-to-mobile experience powered by my JAGTAG 2D barcode technology invention. Using the camera on their mobile devices, people can snap a photo of the JAGTAG 2D barcode featured in print ads and send it to 524824 or @jagtag on Twitter for exclusive video content — in this case, a video of David Ogilvy extolling direct marketing as his “secret weapon” and telling DMA participants that now is a great time to be in the direct response industry.

If you don't know - JAGTAG enables people to request and instantly receive this video content on their mobile devices, without having to download an application. Ogilvy recently leveraged JAGTAG’s technology as part of its new Yahoo! campaign launch.