Like a midwife, I make my living bringing new babies into the world, except that mine are new advertising campaigns.
DAVID OGILVYLike a midwife, I make my living bringing new babies into the world, except that mine are new advertising campaigns.
DAVID OGILVYThere 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 OGILVYAdvertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.
DAVID OGILVYOn 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 OGILVYI 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 OGILVYIf 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 OGILVYNinety-nine percent of advertising doesn’t sell much of anything.
DAVID OGILVYDon’t bunt. Aim out of the ball park. Aim for the company of immortals.
DAVID OGILVYThe consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife.
DAVID OGILVYSome 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 OGILVYIt 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 OGILVYThere 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 OGILVYA good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.
DAVID OGILVYI 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 OGILVYNever 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 OGILVYThe more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be.
DAVID OGILVY