Ogilvy David Quotes & Sayings

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

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

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

In my experience, committees can criticize, but they cannot create. 'Search the parks in all your cities You'll find no statues of committees. — David Ogilvy

Most headlines are set too big to be legible in the magazines or newspaper. Never approve a layout until you have seen it pasted into the magazine or newspaper for which it was destined. If you pin up the layouts on a bulletin board and appraise them from fifteen feet, you will produce posters. — David Ogilvy

Senior men have no monopoly on great ideas. Nor do creative people. Some of the best ideas come from account executives, researchers and others. Encourage this, you need all the ideas you can get. — David Ogilvy

Every advertisement is part of the long term investment in the personality of the brand. — David Ogilvy

It is the inescapable duty of management to fire incompetent people. — 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

Unless your campaign has a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night. — 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

It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money ... — David Ogilvy

Give people a taste of Old Crow, and tell them it's Old Crow. Then give them another taste of Old Crow, but tell them it's Jack Daniel's. Ask them which they prefer. They'll think the two drinks are quite different. They are tasting images — 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

I figure that my staff will be less reluctant to work overtime if I work longer hours than they do. — David Ogilvy

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

H. L. Mencken once said that nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. That is not true. I have come to believe that it pays to make all your layouts project a feeling of good taste, provided that you do it unobtrusively. An ugly layout suggests an ugly product. There are very few products which do not benefit from being given a first class ticket through life. — David Ogilvy

It isn't the whiskey they choose, it's the image. — David Ogilvy

What is a good advertisement? An advertisement which pleases you because of its style, or an advertisement which sells the most? They are seldom the same. — David Ogilvy

A lot of today's campaigns are based on optimum positioning but are totally ineffective - because they are dull, or badly constructed, or ineptly written. If nobody reads your advertisement or looks at your commercial, it doesn't do you much good to have the right positioning. — David Ogilvy

The best idea is the simplest. — David Ogilvy

We exist to build the business of our clients. The recommendations we make to them should be the recommendations we would make if we owned their companies, without regard to our own short-term interest. This earns their respect, which is the greatest asset we can have. — David Ogilvy

Do not address your readers as though they were gathered together in a stadium. When people read your copy, they are alone. Pretend you are writing to each of them a letter on behalf of your client. — David Ogilvy

Creativity needs discipline and freedom. — 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

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

The most effective leader is the one who satisfies the psychological needs of his followers. — 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

Shakespeare wrote his sonnets within a strict discipline, fourteen lines of iambic pentameter, rhyming in three quatrains and a couplet. Were his sonnets dull? Mozart wrote his sonatas within an equally rigid discipline - exposition, development, and recapitulation. Were they dull?. — David Ogilvy

The line between pride in our work and neurotic obstinacy is a narrow one. We make our recommendations clear. But we do not grudge our clients the right to the final say. It is their money. — David Ogilvy

Try and inject into every commercial you make a touch of singularity; a bird that will hook on to the consumers mind — David Ogilvy

Make sure you have a vice president in charge of your revolution, to engender ferment among your more conventional colleagues. — David Ogilvy

It 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 Ogilvy

Where people aren't having any fun, they seldom produce good work. — David Ogilvy

No sale, no commission. No commission, no eat. That made an impression on me. — David Ogilvy

The creative process requires more than reason. Most original thinking isn't even verbal. It requires 'a groping experimentation with ideas, governed by intuitive hunches and inspired by the unconscious.' The majority of business men are incapable of original thinking because they are unable to escape from the tyranny of reason. Their imaginations are blocked. — David Ogilvy

Few of the great creators have bland personalities. They are cantankerous egotists, the kind of men who are unwelcome in the modern corporation. — David Ogilvy

My motto has always been: Only first class business and that in a first class way — 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

The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but it can be more satisfying. — David Ogilvy

Never allow two people to do a job which one could do. George Washington observed, 'Whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty by close application thereto, it is worse executed by two persons, and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein. — David Ogilvy

Always hold your sales meetings in rooms too small for the audience, even if it means holding them in the WC. 'Standing room only' creates an atmosphere of success, as in theatres and restaurants, while a half-empty auditorium smells of failure. — David Ogilvy

Don't bunt. Aim out of the ballpark. — David Ogilvy

You have only 30 seconds in a TV commercial. If you grab attention in the first frame with a visual surprise, you stand a better chance of holding the viewer. People screen out a lot of commercials because they open with something dull. When you advertise fire-extinguishers, open with the fire. — David Ogilvy

Encourage innovation. Change is our lifeblood, stagnation our death knell. — David Ogilvy

People don't buy a new detergent because the manufacturer told a joke on television last night. — David Ogilvy

As a private person, I have a passion for landscape, and I have never seen one improved by a billboard. Where every prospect pleases, man is at his vilest when he erects a billboard. When I retire from Madison Avenue, I am going to start a secret society of masked vigilantes who will travel around the world on silent motor bicycles, chopping down posters at the dark of the moon. How many juries will convict us when we are caught in these acts of beneficent citizenship? — David Ogilvy

Study the methods of your competitors and do the exact opposite. — David Ogilvy

Consumers do not buy products. They buy product benefits. — David Ogilvy

Tell the truth, but make the truth fascinating. — David Ogilvy

Every ad is an investment in the long-term image of a brand. — David Ogilvy

At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock. — David Ogilvy

The best leaders are apt to be found among those executives who have a strong component of unorthodoxy in their character. Instead of resisting innovation, they symbolize it. — David Ogilvy

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

I always said that mega-mergers were for megalomaniacs. — 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

If you tell lies about a product, you will be found out - either by the Government, which will prosecute you, or by the consumer, who will punish you by not buying your product a second time. — David Ogilvy

If you have all the research, all the ground rules, all the directives, all the data - it doesn't mean the ad is written. Then you've got to close the door and write something - that is the moment of truth which we all try to postpone as long as possible. — David Ogilvy

Play to win, but enjoy the fun. — David Ogilvy

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

Creativity Is a fancy word for the work we have to do by Friday. — David Ogilvy

Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon. — David Ogilvy

We like people who are honest. Honest in argument, honest with clients, honest with suppliers, honest with the company - and above all, honest with consumers. — David Ogilvy

Don't hire a dog, then bark yourself — David Ogilvy

Don't just create content to get credit for being clever - create content that will be helpful, insightful, or interesting for your target audience. — David Ogilvy

Our offices must always be headed by the kind of men who command respect. Not phonies, zeros or bastards. — David Ogilvy

If it is something important, get a colleague to improve it, — David Ogilvy

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

Big ideas are usually simple ideas. — 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

Only amateurs use short copy. — David Ogilvy

To advertisers: "Do not compete with your agency in the creative area. Why keep a dog and bark yourself?" — David Ogilvy

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

Never use tricky or irrelevant headlines ... People read too fast to figure out what you are trying to say. — David Ogilvy

Supposing you've got an acute appendicitis. You've got to be operated on tonight. Would you like to have a surgeon who's read some books of anatomy and knows how to do that operation - or would you prefer to have a surgeon who refused to read all books about anatomy and relied on his own instinct? — David Ogilvy

There are now unmistakeable signs of a trend in favor of superior products at premium prices. The consumer is not a moron, she is your wife. — David Ogilvy

Write the way you talk. Naturally. — David Ogilvy

I once used the word OBSOLETE in a headline, only to discover that 43 per cent of housewives had no idea what it meant. In another headline, I used the word INEFFABLE, only to discover that I didn't know what it meant myself. — David Ogilvy

Don't count the people that you reach, reach the people who count — David Ogilvy

Lazy and superficial men and women do not produce superior work. — David Ogilvy

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

If you want ACTION, don't write. Go and tell the guy what you want. — David Ogilvy

You cannot bore people into buying your product - you can only interest them in buying it. — David Ogilvy

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

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

In most agencies, account executives outnumber the copywriters two to one. If you were a dairy farmer, would you employ twice as many milkers as you had cows? — David Ogilvy

Develop your eccentricities early, and no one will think you're going senile later in life — David Ogilvy

The mission of a great school is not to cram you with facts so that you can regurgitate them ... This gives many boys such a distaste for learning that they never read another book as long as they live. No, the mission is to inspire you with a taste for scholarship - a taste which will last you all your life. — David Ogilvy

You will never win fame and fortune unless you invent big ideas. — David Ogilvy

We all have a tendency to use research as a drunkard uses a lamppost - for support, but not for illumination — 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

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

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

Within every brand is a product, but not every product is a brand. — 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

Develop your eccentricities while you are young. That way, when you get old, people won't think you're going gaga. — David Ogilvy