David Ogilvy Quotes - Page 3

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I have a theory that the best ads come from personal experience. Some of the good ones I have done have really come out of the real experience of my life, and somehow this has come over as true and valid and persuasive. People love to read stories. They like to know you as a real person who has your struggle, pain, success and failure, etc. One well-known example is Jared Fogle's weight loss story which made millions of dollars for Subway. Start to collect your stories from today and use them in your ad campaigns.

David Ogilvy

Pain, Real, Struggle

15 Copy quote
I never assign a product to a writer unless I know that he is personally interested in it. Every time I have written a bad campaign, it has been because the product did not interest me.

David Ogilvy

Campaigns, Interest, Knows

5 Copy quote
Every ad is an investment in the long-term image of a brand.

David Ogilvy

Long, Investment, Term

28 Copy quote
It's not creative unless it sells.

David Ogilvy

Creative, Sells

4 Copy quote
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

Ideas, Ineffable, Used

16 Copy quote
Headlines can be strengthend by the inclusion of emotional words like darling, love, fear, proud, friend and baby.

David Ogilvy

Baby, Emotional, Proud

David Ogilvy (1963). “Confessions of an advertising man”, Holiday House

10 Copy quote
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

Night, Ideas, Doubt

16 Copy quote
You can't save souls in an empty church.

David Ogilvy

Soul, Church, Empty

David Ogilvy (2012). “The Unpublished David Ogilvy”, p.64, Profile Books

9 Copy quote
Be more ambitious. Don't bunt. When you get a job to do a story or an ad, try and hit the ball out of the park every time

David Ogilvy

Jobs, Trying, Ambitious

5 Copy quote
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

Business, Top Management, Service Culture

16 Copy quote
Lazy and superficial men and women do not produce superior work.

David Ogilvy

Men, Lazy, Superficial

5 Copy quote
You cannot bore people into buying your product - you can only interest them in buying it.

David Ogilvy

People, Buying, Interest

David Ogilvy (1997). “An Autobiography”, p.140, John Wiley & Sons

8 Copy quote
Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn't sell much of anything.

David Ogilvy

Business, Ninety Nine, Advertising

8 Copy quote
Never write more than two pages on any subject.

David Ogilvy

Writing, Two, Pages

David Ogilvy (2012). “The Unpublished David Ogilvy”, p.54, Profile Books

12 Copy quote
If you can’t advertise yourself, what hope do you have of advertising anything else?

David Ogilvy

Advertising, Ifs

15 Copy quote
At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.

David Ogilvy

Noise, Hours, Clock

David Ogilvy (1997). “An Autobiography”, p.118, John Wiley & Sons

23 Copy quote
The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be. Before people making a buying decision, they have many questions. For example, why they should buy from you, why your product is better than other similar products, why they should trust you, and why they should buy it now, etc.

David Ogilvy

People, Decision, Example

5 Copy quote
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

Agency, Two, Cows

22 Copy quote
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

Art, Writing, Interesting

17 Copy quote
Nobody has ever built a brand by imitating somebody else's advertising.

David Ogilvy

Advertising, Irritating, Advertisement Negative

David Ogilvy (1963). “Confessions of an advertising man”, Holiday House

17 Copy quote
Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.

David Ogilvy

Business, People, Enemy

8 Copy quote
Set exorbitant standards, and give your people hell when they don't live up to them. There is nothing so demoralizing as a boss who tolerates second rate work.

David Ogilvy

People, Giving, Boss

David Ogilvy (2012). “The Unpublished David Ogilvy”, p.70, Profile Books

10 Copy quote
Hard work never killed a man. Men die of boredom, psychological conflict, and disease. They do not die of hard work.

David Ogilvy

Hard Work, Men, Boredom

David Ogilvy (1978). “Blood, Brains and Beer”

6 Copy quote
You 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 Ogilvy

Mean, People, Personality

9 Copy quote
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

Discipline, Three, Development

David Ogilvy (1963). “Confessions of an advertising man”, Holiday House

55 Copy quote

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Born: June 23, 1911
Died: July 21, 1999
Occupation: Businessman
Cite this Page: Citation

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