Develop your eccentricities while you are young. That way, when you get old, people won’t think you’re going gaga.
DAVID OGILVYDevelop your eccentricities while you are young. That way, when you get old, people won’t think you’re going gaga.
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.
DAVID OGILVYDon’t bunt. Aim out of the ball park. Aim for the company of immortals.
DAVID OGILVYNever stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving.
DAVID OGILVYYou 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 OGILVYOur business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon.
DAVID OGILVYLeaders grasp nettles.
DAVID OGILVYThe advertisers who believe in the selling power of jingles have never had to sell anything.
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 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 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 OGILVYIf it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.
DAVID OGILVYWhat you say in advertising is more important than how you say it.
DAVID OGILVYIt 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 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 OGILVYMany 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