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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

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

Advertisement Consumer Himself Honesty Wife
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
The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.
DAVID OGILVY

Best Funny Ideas Possible Thinking Yourself
Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving.
DAVID OGILVY

Advertisement Improvement Stop Yourself
Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon.
DAVID OGILVY

Business Idiot Infest Ourselves Pretend
Leaders grasp nettles.
DAVID OGILVY

Grasp Leadership One Liner
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
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

Believe Goodness Live Product Writing Yourself
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
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 advertisers who believe in the selling power of jingles have never had to sell anything.
DAVID OGILVY

Advertisement Believe Power Sale
Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image.
DAVID OGILVY

Advertisement Brand Complex Contribution Image
Don’t bunt. Aim out of the ball park. Aim for the company of immortals.
DAVID OGILVY

Company Goal Immortal
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

Drink Executive Illumination Marketing Myself Notice Research
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.
DAVID OGILVY

Company Hire Inspirational People Perspective Small Thinking
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

Advertisement Head Kind Product Reading Ticket

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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