Sources of Inspiration According to Ogilvy & Mather

What’s your source of inspiration? If you have trouble finding the right one, Ogilvy & Mather has figured out a few possible answers. For instance, according to a global survey by the company, Albert Einstein is most inspirational person, The Pyramids in Egypt are most inspirational place, and Disney is the most inspirational brand, followed closely by Coca-Cola and Google.

Of course, things vary for each country. For instance, in the UK, the most inspirational person is the late Princess Diana and Apple is the most inspirational brand. Europe likes Coca-Cola more than Disney, particularly in Spain where one in two survey respondents claim to feel inspired by the brand.

In the US, at least one in four people feel inspired by Martin Luther King. And finally, in France one in two consumers claimed to feel inspired by Swedish furniture brand IKEA; while in Russia the winner brands are BMW and Microsoft.

Ogilvy & Mather released the results of the survey to celebrated the centennial of David Ogilvy’s birth – the most inspirational person for the company, of course. The methodology for the survey implied three given questions, with a number of possible answer for each. Although limited, these answers did comprise some of the most famous people, places and brands in the world.

The results are interesting as they show a possible focus for advertisers in specific countries: when you know what inspires people in certain geographic areas, you know how to target your campaigns. The best conclusion comes from Rachel Hatton, Planning Director at Ogilvy Group UK, in the official press release:

“What we find most interesting about the results is that the places people find most inspiring are those that have creativity and ground-breaking ambition at their core. This confirms the importance of what we at Ogilvy already do: focus on originality and challenge existing boundaries.”