David Ogilvy Advertising Quotes & Sayings

The manufacturer who finds himself up the creek is the short-sighted opportunist who siphons off all his advertising dollars for short-term promotions. — David Ogilvy

Before he became the most brilliant and famous man in the ad business, David Ogilvy sold ovens door-to-door. Because of that, he never forgot that advertising is just a slightly more scalable form of creating demand than door-to-door sales. — Ryan Holiday

When you have nothing to say, sing it. — David Ogilvy

I don't know the rules of grammar. If you're trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language. — David Ogilvy

Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving. — David Ogilvy

I can't stand callow amateurs who aren't sufficiently interested in the craft of advertising to assume the posture of students. — David Ogilvy

It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night. I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea. — David Ogilvy

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. — David Ogilvy

You aren't advertising to a standing army; you are advertising to a moving parade. — David Ogilvy

It's the lack of ambition that cripples most people, and makes them so pedestrian in the advertising/creative business — David Ogilvy

Candor compels me to admit that I have no conclusive research to support my view that jingles are less persuasive than the spoken word. You'd run like hell if a salesman came to your door and began singing at you. Why do it in advertising? — David Ogilvy

Like a midwife, I make my living bringing new babies into the world, except that mine are new advertising campaigns. — David Ogilvy

The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible. — David Ogilvy

Consumers don't think how they feel. They don't say what they think and they don't do what they say. — David Ogilvy

I once found myself conspiring with a British Cabinet Minister as to how we might persuade Her Majesty's Treasury to cough up more money for the British Travel advertising in America. Said he, "Why does any American in his senses spend his vacation in the cold damp of an English summer when he could equally well bask under Italian skies? I can only suppose that your advertising is the answer." Damn right. — David Ogilvy

Positioning should be decided before the advertising is created — David Ogilvy

The general advertisers and their agencies know almost nothing for sure, because they cannot measure the results of their advertising. They worship at the altar of creativity, which really means 'originality': The most dangerous word in the lexicon of advertising — David Ogilvy

Good products can be sold by honest advertising. If you don't think the product is good, you have no business to be advertising it. — David Ogilvy

Nobody should be allowed to create general advertising until he has served his apprenticeship in direct-response — David Ogilvy

The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be. — David Ogilvy

I had a friend who was the King's surgeon in England. One day I asked him what makes a great surgeon. He replied, "What distinguishes a great surgeon is his knowledge. He knows more than other surgeons. During an operation he finds something which he wasn't expecting, recognizes it and knows what to do about it." It's the same thing with advertising people. The good ones know more. How do you get to know more? By reading books about advertising. By picking the brains of people who know more than you do. From the Magic Lanterns. And from experience. — David Ogilvy

I don't believe in tricky advertising, I don't believe in cute advertising, I don't believe in comic advertising. The people who perpetrate that kind of advertising never had to sell anything in their lives — David Ogilvy

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

Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals. — 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

I'd like to be remembered, as a copywriter who had some big ideas. That's what the advertising business is all about. Big ideas — David Ogilvy

I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information. When I write an advertisement, I don't want you to tell me that you find it 'creative.' I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product. — David Ogilvy

I know of a brewer who sells more of his beer to the people who never see his advertising than to the people who see it every week. Bad advertising can unsell a product. — David Ogilvy

The relationship between a manufacturer and his advertising agency is almost as intimate as the relationship between a patient and his doctor. Make sure that you can life happily with your prospective client before you accept his account. — David Ogilvy

Advertising is a business of words, but advertising agencies are infested with men and women who cannot write. They cannot write advertisements, and they cannot write plans. They are helpless as deaf mutes on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera. — David Ogilvy

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

Big ideas come from the unconscious. This is true in art, in science, and in advertising. But your unconscious has to be well informed, or your idea will be irrelevant. Stuff your conscious mind with information, then unhook your rational thought process. You can help this process by going for a long walk, or taking a hot bath, or drinking half a pint of claret. Suddenly, if the telephone line from your unconscious is open, a big idea wells up within you. — David Ogilvy

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

Why should a manufacturer bet his money, perhaps the future of his company, on your instinct? — David Ogilvy

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. — David Ogilvy

Can advertising foist an inferior product on the consumer? Bitter experience has taught me that it cannot. On those rare occasions when I have advertised products which consumer tests have found inferior to other products in the same field, the results have been disastrous. — David Ogilvy

Consumers still buy products whose advertising promises them value for money, beauty, nutrition, relief from suffering, social status and so on. — David Ogilvy

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

If you can't advertise yourself, what hope do you have of advertising anything else? — David Ogilvy

I have noticed that agencies which are full of fun and ferment seem to create the best advertising. If you are not happy in advertising, for goodness sake find a job in which you would be happy. For as far as I know, we pass this way only once — David Ogilvy

Nowadays it is the fashion to pretend that no single individual is ever responsible for a successful advertising campaign. This emphasis on "teamwork" is bunkum - a conspiracy of the mediocre majority. — David Ogilvy

Any fool can write a bad advertisement, but it takes a genius to keep his hands off a good one. — David Ogilvy

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

Most agencies run scared, most of the time ... Frightened people are powerless to produce good advertising ... If I were aclient, I would do everything in my power to emancipate my agencies from fear, even to the extent of giving them long-term contracts. — David Ogilvy

Advertising is the place where the selfish interests of the manufacturer coincide with the interests of society. — David Ogilvy

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. — David Ogilvy

What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form. — David Ogilvy

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

Sound an alarm! Advertising, not deals, builds brands. — David Ogilvy

The psychiatrists say that everybody should have a hobby. The hobby I recommend is advertising — David Ogilvy

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

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

Claude Hopkins.. maintained that nobody with a college education could write an advertisement addressed to the mass millions. That's absolute poppycock. — David Ogilvy

Managing an advertising agency isn't all beer and skittles. After fourteen years of it, I have come to the conclusion that the top man has one principle responsibility: to provide an atmosphere in which creative mavericks can do useful work. — David Ogilvy

Experience has taught me that advertisers get the best results when they pay their agency a flat fee. It is unrealistic to expect your agency to be impartial when its vested interest lies wholly in the direction of increasing your commissionable advertising. — David Ogilvy

Advertising reflects the mores of society, but it does not influence them. — David Ogilvy

It follows that your advertising should consistently project the same image, year after year. This is difficult to achieve, because there are always forces at work to change the advertising — David Ogilvy

There is one catagory of advertising which is totally uncontrolled and flagrantly dishonest: the television commercials for candidates in Presidential elections. — David Ogilvy

The business community wants remarkable advertising, but turns a cold shoulder to the kind of people who can produce it. That is why most advertisements are so infernally dull ... our business needs massive transfusions of talent. And talent, I believe, is most likely to be found among nonconformists, dissenters, and rebels. — David Ogilvy

Great hospitals do two things. They look after patients, and they teach young doctors. We look after clients, and we teach young advertising people. — David Ogilvy

Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things. — David Ogilvy

Does advertising corrupt editors? Yes it does, but fewer editors than you may suppose ... the vast majority of editors are incorruptible. — David Ogilvy

While you are responsible to your clients for sales results, you are responsible to consumers for the kind of advertising you bring into their homes. — David Ogilvy

The consumer isn't a moron. She is your wife. — David Ogilvy

If you ever have the good fortune to create a great advertising campaign, you will soon see another agency steal it. This is irritating, but don't let it worry you; nobody has ever built a brand by imitating somebody else's advertising. — David Ogilvy

Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn't sell much of anything. — David Ogilvy

I once attended an advertising conference held at the Greenbrier Hotel in 1968. The dean of the original Mad Men, the great David Ogilvy, was the keynote speaker. The subject of his speech was the new creative revolution in advertising. — Jerry Della Femina