Marketing Quotes by David Ogilvy

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

— David Ogilvy

Positioning should be decided before the advertising is created

— David Ogilvy

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

— David Ogilvy

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

— David Ogilvy

I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information.

— David Ogilvy

Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving.

— David Ogilvy

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

— David Ogilvy

The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.

— David Ogilvy

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

— David Ogilvy

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

I'd like to be remembered, as a copywriter who had some big ideas. That's what the advertising business is all about. Big…

— David Ogilvy

Do not address your readers as though they were gathered together in a stadium. When people read your copy, they are alone.…

— David Ogilvy

Nobody should be allowed to create general advertising until he has served his apprenticeship in direct-response

— David Ogilvy

I avoid clients for whom advertising is only a marginal factor in their marketing mix. They have an awkward tendency to raid…

— David Ogilvy

Like a midwife, I make my living bringing new babies into the world, except that mine are new advertising campaigns.

— David Ogilvy

Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image.

— David Ogilvy

There isn’t any significant difference between the various brands of whiskey, or cigarettes or beer. They are all about the same. And…

— David Ogilvy

Once upon a time I was riding on the top of a First Avenue bus, when I heard a mythical housewife say…

— David Ogilvy

I have noticed that agencies which are full of fun and ferment seem to create the best advertising. If you are not…

— David Ogilvy

I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information. When I write an advertisement,…

— David Ogilvy

I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment; they are coming to rely too much on research,…

— David Ogilvy

...consumers do not buy one brand of soap, or coffee, or detergent. They have a repertory of four or five brands, and…

— David Ogilvy

I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment; they are coming to rely too much on research,…

— David Ogilvy

“Do you think it childish to use a set of written principles to guide the management of an advertising agency? I can…

— David Ogilvy

I had a friend who was the King's surgeon in England. One day I asked him what makes a great surgeon. He…

— David Ogilvy

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…

— David Ogilvy

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

— David Ogilvy

Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things.

— David Ogilvy

What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it.

— David Ogilvy

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

— David Ogilvy

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

— David Ogilvy

The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be.

— David Ogilvy

Great marketing only makes a bad product fail faster.

— David Ogilvy

Sound an alarm! Advertising, not deals, builds brands.

— David Ogilvy

Any damn fool can put on a deal, but it takes genius, faith and perseverance to create a brand.

— David Ogilvy

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

— David Ogilvy

It's the lack of ambition that cripples most people, and makes them so pedestrian in the advertising/creative business

— David Ogilvy

There are very few men of genius in advertising agencies. But we need all we can find. Almost without exception they are…

— David Ogilvy

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…

— David Ogilvy

You now have to decide what 'image' you want for your brand. Image means personality. Products, like people, have personalities, and they…

— David Ogilvy