David Ogilvy Quotes

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.

… there are now unmistakeable signs of a trend in favor of superior products at premium prices. The consumer is not a moron, she is your wife.

Research shows that the readership of an advertisement does not decline when it is run several times in the same magazine. Readership remains at the same level throughout at least four repetitions.

“Making the logo twice the size” is advertisements are deficient in brand identification. “Showing the clients’ faces” is also a better stratagem than it may sound, because the public is more interested in personalities than in the corporations. Some clients can be projected as human symbols of their own products.

A lot of successful advertising was created before POSITIONING campaigns are based on optimum positioning but are totally ineffective – because they are dull, or badly constructed, or ineptly written. If nobody reads your advertisement or looks at your good to have the right positioning.

Some years ago a prayer was read from the pulpit in every church in Greece, asking the Almighty to spare the Greeks from the ‘scourge’ of foreign tourism.

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

I frequently hear the Magic Lanterns described as rules. They are not rules. They are reports. Reports on how consumers react to different stimuli. If it were possible to create great advertising merely by studying the Lanterns, any damn fool could do it. More is required: innovative genius. The Lanterns only light the way for genius, indicating the most fruitful path to explore.

The headlines which work best are those which promise the reader a benefit

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, Ogilvy & Mather will become a company of giants.

Only amateurs use short copy.

We prefer the discipline of knowledge to the anarchy of ignorance. We pursue knowledge the way a pig pursues truffles.

We sell — or else.

I don't believe in this specialization. Who said there's one breed of cat which is an account executive, and then there are the creative people – and they are quite different? This has been perpetuated by both sides for years. It's nonsense.

I could have positioned Dove as a detergent bar for men with dirty hands, but chose instead to position it as a toilet bar for women with dry skin. This is still working 25 years later.