Does advertising corrupt editors? Yes it does, but fewer editors than you may suppose the vast majority of editors are incorruptible.
DAVID OGILVYMany 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.
More David Ogilvy Quotes
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Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things.
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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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I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information.
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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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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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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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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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Advertising reflects the mores of society, but it does not influence them.
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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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Develop your eccentricities while you are young. That way, when you get old, people won’t think you’re going gaga.
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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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The advertisers who believe in the selling power of jingles have never had to sell anything.
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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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Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.
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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.
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The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be.
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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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Don’t bunt. Aim out of the ball park. Aim for the company of immortals.
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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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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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Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image.
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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.
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Many 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.
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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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Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn’t sell much of anything.
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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