David Ogilvy Quotes

Consumers still buy products whose advertising promises them value for money, beauty, nutrition, relief from suffering, social status and so on. All over the world.

Most readers look at the photograph first. If you put it in the middle of the page, the reader will start by looking in the middle. Then her eye must go up to read the headline; this doesn't work, because people have a habit of scanning downwards. However, suppose a few readers do read the headline after seeing the photograph below it. After that, you require them to jump down past the photograph which they have already seen. Not bloody likely.

I used to start my questionnaires by asking, ‘Which would you rather hear on the radio tonight – Jack Benny or a Shakespeare play?’ If the respondent said Shakespeare, I knew he was a liar and broke off the interview.

Ogilvy & Mather does two things: We look after clients, and we teach young advertising people.

Research has shown that commercials which open with a dramatic visual hold their audience better than commercials which don’t. If you are advertising a fire extinguisher, open with the fire.

People buy products, not television commercials.

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.

Concentrate your time, your brains, and your advertising money on your successes. Back your winners, and abandon your losers.

In the best establishments, promises are always kept, whatever it may cost in agony and overtime.

The most effective leader is the one who satisfies the psychological needs of his followers.

Never allow two people to do a job which one could do. George Washington observed, ‘Whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty by close application thereto, it is worse executed by two persons, and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein.

Hard work never killed a man. Men die of boredom, psychological conflict, and disease. They do not die of hard work.

In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.

Promise, large promise is the soul of an advertisement,’ said Samuel Johnson.

Most manufacturers are reluctant to accept any limitation on the image of their brand. They want it to be all things to all people. They want their brand to be a male brand and a female brand. An upper -class brand and a plebeian brand. They generally end up with a brand which has no personality of any kind, a wishy-washy neuter. No capon ever rules the roost.