David Ogilvy > Quotes

“The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.”
― David M. Ogilvy

“The consumer isn't a moron. She is your wife.”
― David Ogilvy, Confessions of an Advertising Man

“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

“Hard work never killed a man. Men die of boredom, psychological conflict, and disease. They do not die of hard work.”
― David Ogilvy

“Where people aren’t having any fun, they seldom produce good work.”
― David Ogilvy, Confessions of an Advertising Man

“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, Confessions of an Advertising Man

“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, Ogilvy on Advertising

“Develop your eccentricities while you are young. That way, when you get old, people won’t think you’re going gaga.”
― David Ogilvy

“What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it.”
― David Ogilvy, Confessions of an Advertising Man

“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

“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, Confessions of an Advertising Man

“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, Ogilvy on Advertising

“The most effective leader is the one who satisfies the psychological needs of his followers.”
― David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising

“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, Confessions of an Advertising Man

“Don't bunt. Aim out of the ballpark. Aim for the company of immortals.”
― David Ogilvy

“Tell your prospective client what your weak points are, before he notices them. This will make you more credible when you boast about your strong points.”
― David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising

“Some copywriters write tricky headlines – double meanings, puns and other obscurities. This is counter-productive. In the average newspaper your headline has to compete with 350 others. Readers travel fast through this jungle. Your headline should telegraph what you want to say.”
― David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising

“The hallmarks of a potentially successful copywriter include: Obsessive curiosity about products, people and advertising. A sense of humor. A habit of hard work. The ability to write interesting prose for printed media, and natural dialogue for television. The ability to think visually. Television commercials depend more on pictures than words. The ambition to write better campaigns than anyone has ever written before.”
― David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising

“It isn’t the whiskey they choose, it’s the image.”
― David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising

“The headlines which work best are those which promise the reader a benefit”
― David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising

“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, Ogilvy on Advertising

“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.”
― David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising

“Sound an alarm! Advertising, not deals, builds brands.”
― David Ogilvy, The Unpublished David Ogilvy

“Only amateurs use short copy.”
― David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising

“On average, helpful information is read by 75 per cent more people than copy which deals only with the product. This ad told how Rinso gets out stains. It was read and remembered”
― David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising

“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, Ogilvy on Advertising

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

“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.”
― David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising

“Concentrate your time, your brains, and your advertising money on your successes. Back your winners, and abandon your losers.”
― David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising

“Said Winston Churchill, ‘PERFECTIONISM is spelled PARALYSIS.”
― David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising