Political advertising ought to be stopped. It’s the only really dishonest kind of advertising that’s left. It’s totally dishonest.
DAVID OGILVYGood copy can’t be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. You’ve got to believe in the product.
More David Ogilvy Quotes
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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.
DAVID OGILVY -
A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.
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 -
Advertising reflects the mores of society, but it does not influence them.
DAVID OGILVY -
Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn’t sell much of anything.
DAVID OGILVY -
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 -
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 -
Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon.
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 -
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 -
What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it.
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 -
Leaders grasp nettles.
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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 -
The secret of long life is double careers. One to about age sixty, then another for the next thirty years.
DAVID OGILVY






