Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving.
DAVID OGILVYMany 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.
More David Ogilvy Quotes
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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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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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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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Leaders grasp nettles.
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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 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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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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Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn’t sell much of anything.
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Don’t bunt. Aim out of the ball park. Aim for the company of immortals.
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Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things.
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The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife.
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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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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.
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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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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.
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What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it.
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The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be.
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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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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.
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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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Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image.
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If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.
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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.
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A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.
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Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.
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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