What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it.
DAVID OGILVYIf it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.
More David Ogilvy Quotes
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The advertisers who believe in the selling power of jingles have never had to sell anything.
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Like a midwife, I make my living bringing new babies into the world, except that mine are new advertising campaigns.
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Political advertising ought to be stopped. It’s the only really dishonest kind of advertising that’s left. It’s totally dishonest.
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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.
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Good copy can’t be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. You’ve got to believe in the product.
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Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon.
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Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving.
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The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but it can be more satisfying.
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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.
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The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be.
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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.
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Don’t bunt. Aim out of the ball park. Aim for the company of immortals.
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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.
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Leaders grasp nettles.
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Advertising reflects the mores of society, but it does not influence them.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Does advertising corrupt editors? Yes it does, but fewer editors than you may suppose the vast majority of editors are incorruptible.
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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.
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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.
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If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.
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In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.
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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.
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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.
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Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image.
DAVID OGILVY