David Ogilvy

Big ideas are usually simple ideas.

— David Ogilvy

If it doesn't sell, it isn't creative.

— David Ogilvy

Play to win, but enjoy the fun.

— David Ogilvy

People who think well, write well

— David Ogilvy

The best idea is the simplest.

— David Ogilvy

Don't hire a dog, then bark yourself

— David Ogilvy

Compete with the immortals

— David Ogilvy

Leaders grasp nettles.

— David Ogilvy

On the average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy.

— David Ogilvy

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

— David Ogilvy

The temptation to entertain instead of selling is contagious.

— David Ogilvy

“Said Winston Churchill, ‘PERFECTIONISM is spelled PARALYSIS.”

— David Ogilvy

My motto has always been: Only first class business and that in a first class way

— David Ogilvy

You make the best products you can, and you grow as fast as you deserve to.

— David Ogilvy

If you can’t be brilliant, at least be memorable

— David Ogilvy

It is the inescapable duty of management to fire incompetent people.

— David Ogilvy

Why should a manufacturer bet his money, perhaps the future of his company, on your instinct?

— David Ogilvy

Good copy can't be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. You've got to believe in the product.

— David Ogilvy

Few of the great creators have bland personalities. They are cantankerous egotists, the kind of men who are unwelcome in the modern…

— David Ogilvy

Agencies which frequently work nights and weekends are more stimulating, more successful - and more profitable.

— David Ogilvy

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

— David Ogilvy

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

— David Ogilvy

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

— David Ogilvy

Never use jargon words like 'reconceptualize', 'demassification', 'attitudinally', 'judgmentally'. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.

— David Ogilvy

If you have all the research, all the ground rules, all the directives, all the data - it doesn't mean the ad…

— 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

Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving. Testing was used in advertising decades ago. The internet has made testing…

— 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

The trouble with many copywriters in general agencies are that they don't really think in terms of selling. They have never written…

— David Ogilvy

Training should not be confined to trainees. It should be a continuous process, and should include the entire professional staff of the…

— David Ogilvy

If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each…

— David Ogilvy

The success of a meeting often depends on having the right documents - proofs, artwork, schedules, research charts, etc. - present at…

— David Ogilvy

“Many security analysts still believe that agencies are a poor investment. Not so Warren Buffett, one of the most successful investors in…

— David Ogilvy

You aren't advertising to a standing army; you are advertising to a moving parade. Three million consumers get married every year. The…

— 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

“Your alcoholics may include some of your brightest stars. The problem is to identify them, protected as they always are by their…

— 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

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

I was doing a campaign once for a manufacturer, and I couldn't think of an ideas, and I was kind of desperate…

— David Ogilvy

The creative process requires more than reason. Most original thinking isn't even verbal. It requires 'a groping experimentation with ideas, governed by…

— David Ogilvy