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If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.

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

Important Marketing Place Product Vocabulary Word Yourself
Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn’t sell much of anything.
DAVID OGILVY

Advertisement Sale
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

Advertisement Avoid Awkward Cash Client Factor Myself Purpose
Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving.
DAVID OGILVY

Advertisement Improvement Stop Yourself
The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.
DAVID OGILVY

Best Funny Ideas Possible Thinking Yourself
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

Afraid Competition Manufacturer Product Question Sale Secret Stop
The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but it can be more satisfying.
DAVID OGILVY

Big Excellence Profit Pursuit Satisfaction
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

Advertisement Committee Creation Mess See Television
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

Creative Genius Leaving Reputation Surround Yourself
The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife.
DAVID OGILVY

Consumer Herself Wife
A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.
DAVID OGILVY

Advertisement Attention Draw Goodness Product Sale
What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form.
DAVID OGILVY

Advertisement Buy Consumer Decision Form
It strikes me as bad manners for a magazine to accept one of my advertisements and then attack it editorially – like inviting a man to dinner then spitting in his eye.
DAVID OGILVY

Acceptance Attack Bad Eyes Invite Magazine Man Manner Strike
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

Advertisement Family Myself Reading Writing
Develop your eccentricities while you are young. That way, when you get old, people won’t think you’re going gaga.
DAVID OGILVY

Development People Thinking Young Yourself
Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon.
DAVID OGILVY

Business Idiot Infest Ourselves Pretend

If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.

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If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.

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Popular Authors

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