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What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it.

David Ogilvy

A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.
DAVID OGILVY

Advertisement Attention Draw Goodness Product Sale
Leaders grasp nettles.
DAVID OGILVY

Grasp Leadership One Liner
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
Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things.
DAVID OGILVY

Advertisement Evil Limitation
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
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
The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife.
DAVID OGILVY

Consumer Herself Wife
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
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
Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon.
DAVID OGILVY

Business Idiot Infest Ourselves Pretend
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.
DAVID OGILVY

Advertisement Avoid Awkward Cash Client Factor Myself Purpose
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 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
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
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
If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.
DAVID OGILVY

Creative Sale

What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it.

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What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it.

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