Best 193 quotes of David Ogilvy on MyQuotes

A consumer is not a moron. She's your wife. Don't insult her intelligence, and don't shock her.

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.

Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things.

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

Advertising reflects the mores of society, but it does not influence them.

Agencies which frequently work nights and weekends are more stimulating, more successful - and more profitable.

A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.

A lot of today's campaigns are based on optimum positioning but are totally ineffective - because they are dull, or badly constructed, or ineptly written. If nobody reads your advertisement or looks at your commercial, it doesn't do you much good to have the right positioning.

Always hold your sales meetings in rooms too small for the audience, even if it means holding them in the WC. 'Standing room only' creates an atmosphere of success, as in theatres and restaurants, while a half-empty auditorium smells of failure.

Any damn fool can put on a deal, but it takes genius, faith and perseverance to create a brand.

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?

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

A well-run restaurant is like a winning baseball team. It makes the most of every crew member's talent and takes advantage of every split-second opportunity to speed up service.

Be more ambitious. Don't bunt. When you get a job to do a story or an ad, try and hit the ball out of the park every time

Big ideas are usually simple ideas.

Big ideas come from the unconscious. This is true in art, in science, and in advertising. But your unconscious has to be well informed, or your idea will be irrelevant. Stuff your conscious mind with information, then unhook your rational thought process. You can help this process by going for a long walk, or taking a hot bath, or drinking half a pint of claret. Suddenly, if the telephone line from your unconscious is open, a big idea wells up within you.

Candor compels me to admit that I have no conclusive research to support my view that jingles are less persuasive than the spoken word. You'd run like hell if a salesman came to your door and began singing at you. Why do it in advertising?

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

Consumers do not buy products. They buy product benefits.

...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.

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

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

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

Creativity needs discipline and freedom.

David Ogilvy made his copywriters come up 100 different headlines for every ad they wrote.

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

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

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

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.

Don't bunt. Aim out of the ball park. Aim for the company of immortals.

Don't hire a dog, then bark yourself

Don’t just create content to get credit for being clever — create content that will be helpful, insightful, or interesting for your target audience.

Encourage innovation. Change is our lifeblood, stagnation our death knell.

Every ad is an investment in the long-term image of a brand.

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

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

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.

Few of the great creators have bland personalities. They are cantankerous egotists, the kind of men who are unwelcome in the modern corporation.

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.

Give people a taste of Old Crow, and tell them it's Old Crow. Then give them another taste of Old Crow, but tell them it's Jack Daniel's. Ask them which they prefer. They'll think the two drinks are quite different. They are tasting images

Good copy can't be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. You've got to believe in the product.

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.

Great hospitals do two things. They look after patients, and they teach young doctors. We look after clients, and we teach young advertising people.

Great marketing only makes a bad product fail faster.

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

Headlines can be strengthend by the inclusion of emotional words like darling, love, fear, proud, friend and baby.

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.

H. L. Mencken once said that nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. That is not true. I have come to believe that it pays to make all your layouts project a feeling of good taste, provided that you do it unobtrusively. An ugly layout suggests an ugly product. There are very few products which do not benefit from being given a first class ticket through life.

I admire people with gentle manners who treat other people as human beings.

I always said that mega-mergers were for megalomaniacs.