David Ogilvy quotes - page 2

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)
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
Good copy can't be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. You've got to believe in the product.
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
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.
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.
David Ogilvy
Some manufacturers illustrate their advertisements with abstract paintings. I would only do this if I wished to conceal from the reader what I was advertising.
David Ogilvy
I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment; they are coming to rely too much on research, and they use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post for support, rather than for illumination.
David Ogilvy
Leaders grasp nettles.
David Ogilvy
The secret of long life is double careers. One to about age sixty, then another for the next thirty years.
David Ogilvy
What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form. (David Ogilvy)
The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but it can be more satisfying.
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
I did not feel 'evil' when I wrote advertisements for Puerto Rico. They helped attract industry and tourists to a country which had been living on the edge of starvation for 400 years.
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
I have a theory that the best ads come from personal experience. Some of the good ones I have done have really come out of the real experience of my life, and somehow this has come over as true and valid and persuasive.
David Ogilvy
Like a midwife, I make my living bringing new babies into the world, except that mine are new advertising campaigns.
David Ogilvy
Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image.
David Ogilvy
The advertisers who believe in the selling power of jingles have never had to sell anything.
David Ogilvy
The relationship between a manufacturer and his advertising agency is almost as intimate as the relationship between a patient and his doctor. Make sure that you can life happily with your prospective client before you accept his account.
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)
It is flagrantly dishonest for an advertising agent to urge consumers to buy a product which he would not allow his own wife to buy.
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
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
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