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The secret of long life is double careers. One to about age sixty, then another for the next thirty years.

David Ogilvy

In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.
DAVID OGILVY

Business Creativity Original Thinking World Yourself
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.
DAVID OGILVY

Agency Egg Genius Gold Man
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
The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.
DAVID OGILVY

Best Funny Ideas Possible Thinking Yourself
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

Brand Decision Image Market People Personality Place Yourself
The advertisers who believe in the selling power of jingles have never had to sell anything.
DAVID OGILVY

Advertisement Believe Power Sale
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
Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn’t sell much of anything.
DAVID OGILVY

Advertisement Sale
If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.
DAVID OGILVY

Creative Sale
The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be.
DAVID OGILVY

Advertisement Information Persuasion
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
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
Advertising reflects the mores of society, but it does not influence them.
DAVID OGILVY

Advertisement Influence Reflection Society
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
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
Political advertising ought to be stopped. It’s the only really dishonest kind of advertising that’s left. It’s totally dishonest.
DAVID OGILVY

Advertisement Honesty Politics Stop
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
Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.
DAVID OGILVY

Advertising Dangerous Enemy Ignorance Research Signal
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
A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.
DAVID OGILVY

Advertisement Attention Draw Goodness Product 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
The secret of long life is double careers. One to about age sixty, then another for the next thirty years.
DAVID OGILVY

Career Life Secret Time
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
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
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
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
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 secret of long life is double careers. One to about age sixty, then another for the next thirty years.

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The secret of long life is double careers. One to about age sixty, then another for the next thirty years.

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