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

David Ogilvy

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
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
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
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
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.
DAVID OGILVY

Average Money People Reading Time 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
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
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
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
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
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.
DAVID OGILVY

Goal Hire Leaving People Remark Settle Yourself
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
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
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
Leaders grasp nettles.
DAVID OGILVY

Grasp Leadership One Liner
Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon.
DAVID OGILVY

Business Idiot Infest Ourselves Pretend
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
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
Does advertising corrupt editors? Yes it does, but fewer editors than you may suppose the vast majority of editors are incorruptible.
DAVID OGILVY

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

Advertisement Influence Reflection Society
Like a midwife, I make my living bringing new babies into the world, except that mine are new advertising campaigns.
DAVID OGILVY

Advertisement Campaign Exception Live Wife World
Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things.
DAVID OGILVY

Advertisement Evil Limitation
The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.
DAVID OGILVY

Best Funny Ideas Possible Thinking 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
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.
DAVID OGILVY

Drink Myself People Product Thinking Writing
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

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

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

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