I can't stand callow amateurs who aren't sufficiently interested in the craft of advertising to assume the posture of students. — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form. — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
Good products can be sold by honest advertising. If you don't think the product is good, you have no business to be… — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
On the average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy. — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information. — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
Like a midwife, I make my living bringing new babies into the world, except that mine are new advertising campaigns. — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
Few of the great creators have bland personalities. They are cantankerous egotists, the kind of men who are unwelcome in the modern… — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
Why should a manufacturer bet his money, perhaps the future of his company, on your instinct? — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
What is a good advertisement? An advertisement which pleases you because of its style, or an advertisement which sells the most? They… — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains… — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
It has been found that the less an advertisement looks like an advertisement and the more it looks like an editorial, the… — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
I have noticed that agencies which are full of fun and ferment seem to create the best advertising. If you are not… — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
Experience has taught me that advertisers get the best results when they pay their agency a flat fee. It is unrealistic to… — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information. When I write an advertisement,… — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving. Testing was used in advertising decades ago. The internet has made testing… — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
I avoid clients for whom advertising is only a marginal factor in their marketing mix. They have an awkward tendency to raid… — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
Big ideas come from the unconscious. This is true in art, in science, and in advertising. But your unconscious has to be… — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
If you can’t advertise yourself, what hope do you have of advertising anything else? — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
Nobody should be allowed to create general advertising until he has served his apprenticeship in direct-response — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals. — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
Great hospitals do two things. They look after patients, and they teach young doctors. We look after clients, and we teach young… — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
While you are responsible to your clients for sales results, you are responsible to consumers for the kind of advertising you bring… — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
You aren’t advertising to a standing army; you are advertising to a moving parade. — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
Consumers still buy products whose advertising promises them value for money, beauty, nutrition, relief from suffering, social status and so on. — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Advertising is the place where the selfish interests of the manufacturer coincide with the interests of society. — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
Consumers don't think how they feel. They don't say what they think and they don't do what they say. — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
If you have all the research, all the ground rules, all the directives, all the data - it doesn't mean the ad… — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
Claude Hopkins.. maintained that nobody with a college education could write an advertisement addressed to the mass millions. That's absolute poppycock. — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
Do not address your readers as though they were gathered together in a stadium. When people read your copy, they are alone.… — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
“I don't know the rules of grammar. If you're trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to… — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
The relationship between a manufacturer and his advertising agency is almost as intimate as the relationship between a patient and his doctor.… — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
Most agencies run scared, most of the time. . . .Frightened people are powerless to produce good advertising. . . . If… — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
Many manufacturers secretly question whether advertising really sells their product, but are vaguely afraid that their competitors might steal a march on… — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
I know of a brewer who sells more of his beer to the people who never see his advertising than to the… — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
Advertising is a business of words, but advertising agencies are infested with men and women who cannot write. They cannot write advertisements,… — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
The most important word in the vocabulary of advertising is TEST. If you pretest your product with consumers, and pretest your advertising,… — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
Remove advertising, disable a person or firm from proclaiming its wares and their merits, and the whole of society and of the… — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
It has taken more than a hundred scientists two years to find out how to make the product in question; I have… — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
A lot of today's campaigns are based on optimum positioning but are totally ineffective - because they are dull, or badly constructed,… — David Ogilvy Copy Share Image
I figure that my staff will be less reluctant to work overtime if I work longer hours than they do. — David Ogilvy Copy Share
In most agencies, account executives outnumber the copywriters two to one. If you were a dairy farmer, would you employ twice as many milkers… — David Ogilvy Copy Share
“Your alcoholics may include some of your brightest stars. The problem is to identify them, protected as they always are by their secretaries and… — David Ogilvy Copy Share
It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big… — David Ogilvy Copy Share
Many manufacturers secretly question whether advertising really sells their product, but are vaguely afraid that their competitors might steal a march on them if… — David Ogilvy Copy Share
Once upon a time I was riding on the top of a First Avenue bus, when I heard a mythical housewife say to another,… — David Ogilvy Copy Share
In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create. — David Ogilvy Copy Share
Consumers don't think how they feel. They don't say what they think and they don't do what they say. — David Ogilvy Copy Share
The worst fault a salesman can commit is to be a bore. Foster any attempt to talk about other things; the longer you stay… — David Ogilvy Copy Share
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… — David Ogilvy Copy Share
I never assign a product to a writer unless I know that he is personally interested in it. Every time I have written a… — David Ogilvy Copy Share
Talent, I believe, is most likely to be found among nonconformists, dissenters, and rebels. — David Ogilvy Copy Share
