1. what would you work for free?
For an organization or institution that can't afford communication but does priceless work for the disadvantaged. Personally, I volunteer for ASRA, an organization that supports disabled and disadvantaged children and youth in the slums of New Delhi.
2. where and how have you ever bluffed in your life?
In our work, we are always bluffing. How else could we convince our customers to take a chance on something unusual, something that hasn't already been tried and tested umpteen times?
3. what do you see as the biggest challenge for advertising at the moment?
To reconcile all the wishes and demands of customers and employees. And, of course, keeping up with the increasing complexity of channels and making their use efficient and effective for customers' brands.
4. do you fall for advertising?
Gladly, even. There is nothing better than being seduced.
5. if you had not become an advertiser - what then?
customer. In principle, I would still like to become one.
6. what does not come to the office under any circumstances?
Plants. Experience shows that they either drown or dry up miserably in an agency.
7. what would you most like to promote?
For more good publicity.
8. what is impossible for you to do without?
To my colleagues in the agency.
9. what do you never want to have to hear about yourself?
That I have no commitment to employees, customers and ideas.
10. ever thought about leaving the advertising industry?
Whenever a really good idea ends up in the trash.
11. What inspired you to enter the advertising/communications industry?
David Ogilvy. The book "Confessions of an Advertising Man.
12. what are you determined to achieve?
Continue to have fun and enjoy your work and experience many more exciting things.
13. when you have an idea, how do you know it is good?
If it fits the brand and if it is right for the head and the stomach in equal measure.
Gaby Zimmerli has been with Ogilvy since 1991. In 1999, she assumed overall responsibility for the traditional agency as Managing Director and at the same time launched the Ogilvy Senior Management Development Program. To this day, she leads the fortunes of the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather and the business-to-business unit Ogilvy Business. Previously, she worked for several years as an assistant, junior consultant and advisor at local agencies TWS Werbeshop and Bootz & Grolimund.
The "13 Questions" appear both online and in the print edition of Werbewoche.
Implementation 13 Questions: Thomas Häusermann
