Top 221 Quotes & Sayings by David Ogilvy - Page 2

We all have a tendency to use research as a drunkard uses a lamppost – for support, not for illumination.

Do not address your readers as though they were gathered together in a stadium. When people read your copy, they are alone. Pretend you are writing to each of them a letter on behalf of your client.

I never write fewer than sixteen headlines for a single advertisement.

We exist to build the business of our clients. The recommendations we make to them should be the recommendations we would make if we owned their companies, without regard to our own short-term interest. This earns their respect, which is the greatest asset we can have.

Be more ambitious. Don't bunt. When you get a job to do a story or an ad, try and hit the ball out of the park every time

You will never win fame and fortune unless you invent big ideas.

Encourage innovation. Change is our lifeblood, stagnation our death knell.

I prefer the discipline of knowledge to the anarchy of ignorance.

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.

The headline is the most important element in most advertisements. It is the telegram which decides the reader whether to read the copy.

When you advertise fire extinguishers, open with the fire.

Where people aren't having any fun, they seldom produce good work.

The majority of business men are not capable of an original thought, simply because they cannot escape the tyranny of reason.

I once used the word OBSOLETE in a headline, only to discover that 43 per cent of housewives had no idea what it meant. In another headline, I used the word INEFFABLE, only to discover that I didn't know what it meant myself.

There isn’t any significant difference between the various brands of whiskey, or cigarettes or beer. They are all about the same. And so are the cake mixes and the detergents, and the margarines… The manufacturer who dedicates his advertising to building the most sharply defined personality for his brand will get the largest share of the market at the highest profit.

It takes uncommon guts to stick to one style in the face of all the pressures to 'come up with something new' every six months. It is tragically easy to be stampeded into change. But golden rewards await the advertiser who has the brains to create a coherent image, and the stability to stick with it over a long period.

At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.

You have only 30 seconds in a TV commercial. If you grab attention in the first frame with a visual surprise, you stand a better chance of holding the viewer. People screen out a lot of commercials because they open with something dull. When you advertise fire-extinguishers, open with the fire.

Good products can be sold by honest advertising. If you don't think the product is good, you have no business to be advertising it.

People who think well, write well

You aren't advertising to a standing army; you are advertising to a moving parade. Three million consumers get married every year. The advertisement which sold a refrigerator to those who got married last year will probably be just as successful with those who'll get married next year. An advertisement is just like a radar sweep, constantly hunting new prospects as they come into the market. Get a good radar and keep it sweeping.

Consumers do not buy products. They buy product benefits.

If you ever find a man who is better than you are - hire him. If necessary, pay him more than you pay yourself.

Headlines can be strengthend by the inclusion of emotional words like darling, love, fear, proud, friend and baby.

Creativity needs discipline and freedom.

Nobody ever arrives at a very big idea through a conscious, rational thought process. It comes from your unconscious.

When people aren't having any fun, they seldom produce good work. Kill the grimness with laughter. Encourage exuberance. Get rid of sad dogs that spread gloom.

You can't save souls in an empty church.

The best idea is the simplest.

Compete with the immortals

You aren’t advertising to a standing army; you are advertising to a moving parade.

The temptation to entertain instead of selling is contagious.

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

The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be. Before people making a buying decision, they have many questions. For example, why they should buy from you, why your product is better than other similar products, why they should trust you, and why they should buy it now, etc.

Play to win, but enjoy the fun.

Set exorbitant standards, and give your people hell when they don't live up to them. There is nothing so demoralizing as a boss who tolerates second rate work.

What you learn is more important than what you earn.

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

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. You can help this process by going for a long walk, or taking a hot bath, or drinking half a pint of claret. Suddenly, if the telephone line from your unconscious is open, a big idea wells up within you.

It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money.

Positioning should be decided before the advertising is created

Consumers don't think how they feel. They don't say what they think and they don't do what they say.

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

Talent, I believe, is most likely to be found among nonconformists, dissenters, and rebels.

What is a good advertisement? An advertisement which pleases you because of its style, or an advertisement which sells the most? They are seldom the same.

I never assign a product to a writer unless I know that he is personally interested in it. Every time I have written a bad campaign, it has been because the product did not interest me.

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

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

If you have a truly big idea, the wrong technique won't kill it. And if you don't have a big idea, the right technique won't help you

If you want to be interesting, be interested.

Big ideas are usually simple ideas.

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

Repeat your winners. If you are lucky enough to write a good advertisement, repeat it until it stops selling. Scores of good advertisements have been discarded before they lost their potency.

In most agencies, account executives outnumber the copywriters two to one. If you were a dairy farmer, would you employ twice as many milkers as you had cows?

Advertising is the place where the selfish interests of the manufacturer coincide with the interests of society.

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. People love to read stories. They like to know you as a real person who has your struggle, pain, success and failure, etc. One well-known example is Jared Fogle's weight loss story which made millions of dollars for Subway. Start to collect your stories from today and use them in your ad campaigns.

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

It is important to admit your mistakes, and to do so before you are charged with them. Many clients are surrounded by buckpassers who make a fine art of blaming the agency for their own failures. I seize the earliest opportunity to assume the blame.

To advertisers: "Do not compete with your agency in the creative area. Why keep a dog and bark yourself?"

The worst fault a salesman can commit is to be a bore...... Pretend to be vastly interested in any subject the prospects shows an interest in.