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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.

David Ogilvy

Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn’t sell much of anything.
DAVID OGILVY

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

Business Idiot Infest Ourselves Pretend
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.
DAVID OGILVY

Advertising Economy Enemy Freedom Person Removal Society Transformation
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
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
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

Attraction Edge Evil Feeling Help Myself Starvation Time
The advertisers who believe in the selling power of jingles have never had to sell anything.
DAVID OGILVY

Advertisement Believe Power Sale
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.
DAVID OGILVY

Advertisement Editor Need Yourself
Don’t bunt. Aim out of the ball park. Aim for the company of immortals.
DAVID OGILVY

Company Goal Immortal
If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.
DAVID OGILVY

Creative Sale
Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving.
DAVID OGILVY

Advertisement Improvement Stop Yourself
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

Abstract Illustration Manufacturer Myself Painting Reading
I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information.
DAVID OGILVY

Advertisement Entertainment Information Regard
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
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

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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