QUOTES by David Ogilvy
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There are very few men of genius in advertising agencies. But we need all we can find. Almost without exception they are disagreeable. Don't destroy them. They lay golden eggs.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
Advertising is a business of words, but advertising agencies are infested with men and women who cannot write. They cannot write advertisements, and they cannot write plans. They are helpless as deaf mutes on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
Good products can be sold by honest advertising. If you don't think the product is good, you have no business to be advertising it.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
Any damn fool can put on a deal, but it takes genius, faith and perseverance to create a brand.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
Experience has taught me that advertisers get the best results when they pay their agency a flat fee. It is unrealistic to expect your agency to be impartial when its vested interest lies wholly in the direction of increasing your commissionable advertising.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
It has taken more than a hundred scientists two years to find out how to make the product in question; I have been given thirty days to create its personality and plan its launching. If I do my job well, I shall contribute as much as the hundred scientists to the success of this product.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
If you have all the research, all the ground rules, all the directives, all the data - it doesn't mean the ad is written. Then you've got to close the door and write something - that is the moment of truth which we all try to postpone as long as possible.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
Why should a manufacturer bet his money, perhaps the future of his company, on your instinct?
Quote by -David Ogilvy
Never write an advertisement which you wouldn't want your own family to read. You wouldn't tell lies to your own wife. Don't tell them to mine. Do as you would be done by. If you tell lies about a product, you will be found out - either by the Government, which will prosecute you, or by the consumer, who will punish you by not buying your product a second time. Good products can be sold by honest advertising. If you don't think the product is good, you have no business to be advertising it.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
The most important word in the vocabulary of advertising is TEST. If you pretest your product with consumers, and pretest your advertising, you will do well in the marketplace.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
Good copy can't be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. You've got to believe in the product.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
If you ever have the good fortune to create a great advertising campaign, you will soon see another agency steal it. This is irritating, but don't let it worry you; nobody has ever built a brand by imitating somebody else's advertising.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
Much of the messy advertising you see on television today is the product of committees. Committees can criticize advertisements, but they should never be allowed to create them.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
Never write an advertisement which you wouldn't want your family to read. You wouldn't tell lies to your own wife. Don't tell them to mine.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
I don't know the rules of grammar... If you're trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think. We try to write in the vernacular.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
Hire people who are better than you are, then leave them to get on with it. Look for people who will aim for the remarkable, who will not settle for the routine.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
There is no need for advertisements to look like advertisements. If you make them look like editorial pages, you will attract about 50 per cent more readers.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
If each of us hires people smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
If you always hire people who are smaller than you are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. If, on the other hand, you always hire people who are bigger than you are, we shall become a company of giants.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
We like people who are honest. Honest in argument, honest with clients, honest with suppliers, honest with the company - and above all, honest with consumers.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
On the average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
Set exorbitant standards, and give your people hell when they don't live up to them. There is nothing so demoralizing as a boss who tolerates second rate work.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
The business community wants remarkable advertising, but turns a cold shoulder to the kind of people who can produce it. That is why most advertisements are so infernally dull.... our business needs massive transfusions of talent. And talent, I believe, is most likely to be found among nonconformists, dissenters, and rebels.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
You have only 30 seconds in a TV commercial. If you grab attention in the first frame with a visual surprise, you stand a better chance of holding the viewer. People screen out a lot of commercials because they open with something dull. When you advertise fire-extinguishers, open with the fire.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
Do not address your readers as though they were gathered together in a stadium. When people read your copy, they are alone. Pretend you are writing to each of them a letter on behalf of your client.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
It's the lack of ambition that cripples most people, and makes them so pedestrian in the advertising/creative business
Quote by -David Ogilvy
You cannot bore people into buying your product - you can only interest them in buying it.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
If you always hire people who are bigger than you are, we shall become a company of giants
Quote by -David Ogilvy
Training should not be confined to trainees. It should be a continuous process, and should include the entire professional staff of the agency. The more our people learn, the more useful they can be to our clients.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
Great hospitals do two things. They look after patients, and they teach young doctors. We look after clients, and we teach young advertising people.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be. Before people making a buying decision, they have many questions. For example, why they should buy from you, why your product is better than other similar products, why they should trust you, and why they should buy it now, etc.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
People don't buy a new detergent because the manufacturer told a joke on television last night.
Quote by -David Ogilvy
The more story-appeal there is in the picture or in the photograph, the more people would look at your ad
Quote by -David Ogilvy
Most readers look at the photograph first. If you put it in the middle of the page, the reader will start by looking in the middle. Then her eye must go up to read the headline; this doesn't work, because people have a habit of scanning downwards. However, suppose a few readers do read the headline after seeing the photograph below it. After that, you require them to jump down past the photograph which they have already seen. Not bloody likely.
Quote by -David Ogilvy