David Ogilvy Quotes - Page 7

Quotes about:

• 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

  Business, Agency, Worry

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

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  Running, Agency, Long

  8 Copy quote

• The trouble with many copywriters in general agencies are that they don't really think in terms of selling. They have never written direct-response; they have never tasted blood

  David Ogilvy

  Thinking, Agency, Blood

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  Kings, Book, Reading

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  Believe, People, Community

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  Jobs, Fun, Agency

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  Awkward, Marketing, Needs

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

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  People, Clients, Honest

  David Ogilvy (2012). “The Unpublished David Ogilvy”, p.105, Profile Books

  10 Copy quote

• ...consumers do not buy one brand of soap, or coffee, or detergent. They have a repertory of four or five brands, and move from one to another. They almost never buy a brand which has not been admitted to their repertory during its first year on the market.

  David Ogilvy

  Coffee, Moving, Years

  10 Copy quote

• We admire people who work hard, who are objective and thorough. We detest office politicians, toadies, bullies, and pompous asses. We abhor ruthlessness. The way up our ladder is open to everybody. In promoting people to top jobs, we are influenced as much by their character as anything else.

  David Ogilvy

  Jobs, Character, Hard Work

  7 Copy quote

• Most readers look at the photograph first. If you put it in the middle of the page, the reader will start by looking in the middle. Then her eye must go up to read the headline; this doesn't work, because people have a habit of scanning downwards. However, suppose a few readers do read the headline after seeing the photograph below it. After that, you require them to jump down past the photograph which they have already seen. Not bloody likely.

  David Ogilvy

  Eye, Past, People

  6 Copy quote

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

  David Ogilvy

  Crafts, Students, Assuming

  4 Copy quote

• Viewers have a way of remembering the celebrity while forgetting the product. I did not know this when I paid Eleanor Roosevelt $35,000 to make a commercial for margarine. She reported that her mail was equally divided. "One half was sad because I had damaged my reputation. The other half was happy because I had damaged my reputation." Not one of my proudest memories.

  David Ogilvy

  Memories, Half, Mail

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  David Ogilvy

  Business, Real, Done

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Eye, Men, Magazines

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

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  Feet, Boards, Magazines

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  Doctors, Two, People

  David Ogilvy (2012). “The Unpublished David Ogilvy”, p.26, Profile Books

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  Business, Design, Television

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

  9 Copy quote

• Creativity Is a fancy word for the work we have to do by Friday.

  David Ogilvy

  Friday, Creativity, Fancy

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  Pride, Finals, Lines

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  Wife, Favors, Trends

  "Ogilvy on Advertising". Book by David Ogilvy, p.170, 1983.

  5 Copy quote

• Never write an advertisement which you wouldn't want your own family to read. You wouldn't tell lies to your own wife. Don't tell them to mine. Do as you would be done by.

  David Ogilvy

  Business, Lying, Writing

  "Confessions of an Advertising Man". Book by David Ogilvy, 1963.

  7 Copy quote

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

  David Ogilvy

  Thinking, People, Way

  David Ogilvy (2012). “The Unpublished David Ogilvy”, p.19, Profile Books

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  Enemy, Merit, Disability

  9 Copy quote

• I never tell one client that I cannot attend his sales convention because I have a previous engagement with another client; successful polygamy depends upon pretending to each spouse that she is the only pebble on your beach.

  David Ogilvy

  Beach, Humorous, Successful

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

  72 Copy quote

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