David Ogilvy Quotes

Most headlines are set too big to be legible in the magazines or newspaper. Never approve a layout until you have seen it pasted into the magazine or newspaper for which it was destined. If you pin up the layouts on a bulletin board and appraise them from fifteen feet, you will produce posters. ~ David Ogilvy

Within every brand is a product, but not every product is a brand. ~ David Ogilvy

Senior men have no monopoly on great ideas. Nor do creative people. Some of the best ideas come from account executives, researchers and others. Encourage this, you need all the ideas you can get. ~ David Ogilvy

Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon. ~ David Ogilvy

I don't believe in tricky advertising, I don't believe in cute advertising, I don't believe in comic advertising. The people who perpetrate that kind of advertising never had to sell anything in their lives ~ David Ogilvy

Why do eight out of ten new consumer products fail? Sometimes because they are too new. The first cold cereals were rejected by consumers. More often new products fail because they are not new enough. ~ David Ogilvy

In most agencies, account executives outnumber the copywriters two to one. If you were a dairy farmer, would you employ twice as many milkers as you had cows? ~ David Ogilvy

Viewers have a way of remembering the celebrity while forgetting the product. I did not know this when I paid Eleanor Roosevelt $35,000 to make a commercial for margarine. She reported that her mail was equally divided. "One half was sad because I had damaged my reputation. The other half was happy because I had damaged my reputation." Not one of my proudest memories. ~ David Ogilvy

Many manufacturers secretly question whether advertising really sells their product, but are vaguely afraid that their competitors might steal a march on them if they stopped. ~ David Ogilvy

I once found myself conspiring with a British Cabinet Minister as to how we might persuade Her Majesty's Treasury to cough up more money for the British Travel advertising in America. Said he, "Why does any American in his senses spend his vacation in the cold damp of an English summer when he could equally well bask under Italian skies? I can only suppose that your advertising is the answer." Damn right. ~ David Ogilvy

The majority of business men are not capable of an original thought, simply because they cannot escape the tyranny of reason. ~ 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. ~ David Ogilvy

Creativity Is a fancy word for the work we have to do by Friday. ~ David Ogilvy

You can't save souls in an empty church. ~ David Ogilvy

Our offices must always be headed by the kind of men who command respect. Not phonies, zeros or bastards. ~ David Ogilvy

Remove advertising, disable a person or firm from proclaiming its wares and their merits, and the whole of society and of the economy is transformed. The enemies of advertising are the enemies of freedom. ~ David Ogilvy

There is one catagory of advertising which is totally uncontrolled and flagrantly dishonest: the television commercials for candidates in Presidential elections. ~ 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. ~ David Ogilvy

I avoid clients for whom advertising is only a marginal factor in their marketing mix. They have an awkward tendency to raid their advertising appropriations whenever they need cash for other purposes. ~ 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. ~ David Ogilvy

It takes uncommon guts to stick to one style in the face of all the pressures to 'come up with something new' every six months. It is tragically easy to be stampeded into change. But golden rewards await the advertiser who has the brains to create a coherent image, and the stability to stick with it over a long period. ~ David Ogilvy

It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money ... ~ David Ogilvy

It has been found that the less an advertisement looks like an advertisement and the more it looks like an editorial, the more readers stop, look, and read. ~ David Ogilvy

The best leaders are apt to be found among those executives who have a strong component of unorthodoxy in their character. Instead of resisting innovation, they symbolize it. ~ David Ogilvy

The headline is the 'ticket on the meat.' Use it to flag down readers who are prospects for the kind of product you are advertising. ~ David Ogilvy

I'd like to be remembered, as a copywriter who had some big ideas. That's what the advertising business is all about. Big ideas ~ David Ogilvy

You will never win fame and fortune unless you invent big ideas. ~ David Ogilvy

Madison Avenue is full of masochists who unconsciously provoke rejection by their clients. I know brilliant men who have lost every account they have ever handled. ~ David Ogilvy

If you, my fellow copywriters or art directors, want to win the award, devote your genius to making the cash register ring. ~ David Ogilvy

I never write fewer than sixteen headlines for a single advertisement. ~ David Ogilvy

What you learn is more important than what you earn. ~ David Ogilvy

What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form. ~ David Ogilvy

What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it. ~ David Ogilvy

Develop your eccentricities while you are young. That way, when you get old, people won't think you're going gaga. ~ David Ogilvy

If you can't be brilliant, at least be memorable ~ David Ogilvy

I can't stand callow amateurs who aren't sufficiently interested in the craft of advertising to assume the posture of students. ~ 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. ~ David Ogilvy

I have an inviolable rule against employing nepots and spouses, because they breed politics. Whenever two people get married, one of them must depart - preferably the female, to look after the baby. ~ David Ogilvy

You aren't advertising to a standing army; you are advertising to a moving parade. ~ David Ogilvy

In my experience, committees can criticize, but they cannot create. 'Search the parks in all your cities You'll find no statues of committees. ~ David Ogilvy

My motto has always been: Only first class business and that in a first class way ~ David Ogilvy

Any fool can write a bad advertisement, but it takes a genius to keep his hands off a good one. ~ David Ogilvy

If you can't advertise yourself, what hope do you have of advertising anything else? ~ David Ogilvy

Nowadays it is the fashion to pretend that no single individual is ever responsible for a successful advertising campaign. This emphasis on "teamwork" is bunkum - a conspiracy of the mediocre majority. ~ David Ogilvy

You make the best products you can, and you grow as fast as you deserve to. ~ David Ogilvy

Consumers don't think how they feel. They don't say what they think and they don't do what they say. ~ David Ogilvy

Develop your eccentricities early, and no one will think you're going senile later in life ~ David Ogilvy

The only marketers who know what the hell they're doing are those who have worked in sales ~ David Ogilvy

The temptation to entertain instead of selling is contagious. ~ David Ogilvy

Consumers do not buy one brand of soap, or coffee, or detergent. They have a repertory of four or five brands, and move from one to another. They almost never buy a brand which has not been admitted to their repertory during its first year on the market. ~ David Ogilvy

Claude Hopkins.. maintained that nobody with a college education could write an advertisement addressed to the mass millions. That's absolute poppycock. ~ David Ogilvy

Try and inject into every commercial you make a touch of singularity; a bird that will hook on to the consumers mind ~ David Ogilvy

While you are responsible to your clients for sales results, you are responsible to consumers for the kind of advertising you bring into their homes. ~ David Ogilvy

Sound an alarm! Advertising, not deals, builds brands. ~ David Ogilvy

If you want ACTION, don't write. Go and tell the guy what you want. ~ David Ogilvy

Only amateurs use short copy. ~ 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. ~ David Ogilvy

Nobody should be allowed to create general advertising until he has served his apprenticeship in direct-response ~ David Ogilvy

Many people - and I think I am one of them - are more productive when they've had a little to drink. I find if I drink two or three brandies, I'm far better able to write. ~ David Ogilvy

Does advertising corrupt editors? Yes it does, but fewer editors than you may suppose ... the vast majority of editors are incorruptible. ~ David Ogilvy

Consumers do not buy products. They buy product benefits. ~ David Ogilvy

The success of a meeting often depends on having the right documents - proofs, artwork, schedules, research charts, etc. - present at the start of the meeting. All too often we arrive like plumbers, leaving our tools behind. ~ David Ogilvy

The consumer isn't a moron. She is your wife. ~ David Ogilvy

The best idea is the simplest. ~ 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. ~ David Ogilvy

Readers travel so fast they don't stop to decipher the meaning of obscure headlines. ~ David Ogilvy

If you have a truly big idea, the wrong technique won't kill it. And if you don't have a big idea, the right technique won't help you ~ David Ogilvy

There are now unmistakeable signs of a trend in favor of superior products at premium prices. The consumer is not a moron, she is your wife. ~ David Ogilvy

Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image. ~ David Ogilvy

At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock. ~ David Ogilvy

Why should a manufacturer bet his money, perhaps the future of his company, on your instinct? ~ David Ogilvy

I once attended an advertising conference held at the Greenbrier Hotel in 1968. The dean of the original Mad Men, the great David Ogilvy, was the keynote speaker. The subject of his speech was the new creative revolution in advertising. ~ Jerry Della Femina

Like a midwife, I make my living bringing new babies into the world, except that mine are new advertising campaigns. ~ David Ogilvy

Great marketing only makes a bad product fail faster. ~ David Ogilvy

It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night. I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea. ~ 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. ~ David Ogilvy

You now have to decide what 'image' you want for your brand. Image means personality. Products, like people, have personalities, and they can make or break them in the market place. ~ David Ogilvy

First, make yourself a reputation for being a creative genius. Second, surround yourself with partners who are better than you are. Third, leave them to go get on with it. ~ David Ogilvy

Managing an advertising agency isn't all beer and skittles. After fourteen years of it, I have come to the conclusion that the top man has one principle responsibility: to provide an atmosphere in which creative mavericks can do useful work. ~ David Ogilvy

Never allow two people to do a job which one could do. George Washington observed, 'Whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty by close application thereto, it is worse executed by two persons, and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein. ~ David Ogilvy

The most effective leader is the one who satisfies the psychological needs of his followers. ~ David Ogilvy

Hard work never killed a man. Men die of boredom, psychological conflict, and disease. They do not die of hard work. ~ David Ogilvy

As a private person, I have a passion for landscape, and I have never seen one improved by a billboard. Where every prospect pleases, man is at his vilest when he erects a billboard. When I retire from Madison Avenue, I am going to start a secret society of masked vigilantes who will travel around the world on silent motor bicycles, chopping down posters at the dark of the moon. How many juries will convict us when we are caught in these acts of beneficent citizenship? ~ David Ogilvy

The worst fault a salesman can commit is to be a bore ... Pretend to be vastly interested in any subject the prospects shows an interest in. ~ David Ogilvy

Shakespeare wrote his sonnets within a strict discipline, fourteen lines of iambic pentameter, rhyming in three quatrains and a couplet. Were his sonnets dull? Mozart wrote his sonatas within an equally rigid discipline - exposition, development, and recapitulation. Were they dull?. ~ David Ogilvy

One half was sad because I had damaged my reputation. The other half was happy because I had damaged my reputation. ~ David Ogilvy

Every advertisement is part of the long term investment in the personality of the brand. ~ David Ogilvy

Consumers still buy products whose advertising promises them value for money, beauty, nutrition, relief from suffering, social status and so on. ~ David Ogilvy

Lazy and superficial men and women do not produce superior work. ~ David Ogilvy

I never assign a product to a writer unless I know that he is personally interested in it. Every time I have written a bad campaign, it has been because the product did not interest me. ~ 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. ~ David Ogilvy

We all have a tendency to use research as a drunkard uses a lamppost - for support, but not for illumination ~ David Ogilvy

I had a friend who was the King's surgeon in England. One day I asked him what makes a great surgeon. He replied, "What distinguishes a great surgeon is his knowledge. He knows more than other surgeons. During an operation he finds something which he wasn't expecting, recognizes it and knows what to do about it." It's the same thing with advertising people. The good ones know more. How do you get to know more? By reading books about advertising. By picking the brains of people who know more than you do. From the Magic Lanterns. And from experience. ~ David Ogilvy

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. ~ David Ogilvy

Nobody ever arrives at a very big idea through a conscious, rational thought process. It comes from your unconscious. ~ David Ogilvy

Before he became the most brilliant and famous man in the ad business, David Ogilvy sold ovens door-to-door. Because of that, he never forgot that advertising is just a slightly more scalable form of creating demand than door-to-door sales. ~ Ryan Holiday

Advertising is the place where the selfish interests of the manufacturer coincide with the interests of society. ~ David Ogilvy

Creativity needs discipline and freedom. ~ David Ogilvy

It isn't the whiskey they choose, it's the image. ~ David Ogilvy

I always use my clients' products. This is not toady-ism, but elementary good manners. ~ David Ogilvy