David Ogilvy Quotes

1. First, we admire people who work hard. We dislike passengers who don’t pull their weight in the boat. 2. We admire people with first-class brains, because you cannot run a great advertising agency without brainy people. 3. We admire people who avoid politics – office politics, I mean. 4. We despise toadies who suck up to their bosses; they are generally the same people who bully their subordinates. 5. We admire the great professionals, the craftsmen who do their jobs with superlative excellence. We notice that these people always respect the professional expertise of their colleagues in other departments. 6. We admire people who hire subordinates who are good enough to succeed them. We pity people who are so insecure that they feel compelled to hire inferior specimens as their subordinates. 7. We admire people who build up and develop their subordinates, because this is the only way we can promote from within the ranks. We detest having to go outside to fill important jobs, and I look forward to the day when that will never be necessary. 8. We admire people who practice delegation. The more you delegate, the more responsibility will be loaded upon you. 9. We admire kindly people with gentle manners who treat other people as human beings – particularly the people who sell things to us. We abhor quarrelsome people. We abhor people who wage paper warfare. We abhor buck passers, and people who don’t tell the truth. 10. We admire well-organized people who keep their offices shipshape, and deliver their work on time. 11. We admire people who are good citizens in their communities – people who work for their local hospitals, their church, the PTA, the Community Chest and so on.

Given sufficient training, any intelligent person can learn to conduct surveys, but getting people to use the results requires salesmanship of a high order.

If you choose to ignore these factors, good luck to you. A blind pig can sometimes find truffles, but it helps to know that they are found in oak forests.

Many security analysts still believe that agencies are a poor investment. Not so Warren Buffett, one of the most successful investors in the world. He has taken substantial positions in three publicly held agencies, and is quoted as saying, ‘The best business is a royalty on the growth of others, requiring very little capital itself … such as the top international advertising agencies.’ If

People don't think what they feel, don't say what they think and don't do what they say.

In my Confessions, I told how I started by making a list of the clients I most wanted – General Foods, Lever Brothers, Bristol Myers, Campbell Soup Company and Shell. It took time, but in due course I got them all, plus American Express, Sears Roebuck, IBM, Morgan Guaranty, Merrill Lynch and a few others, including

Almost any question can be answered, cheaply, quickly and finally, by a test campaign. And that’s the way to answer them – not by arguments around the table.

It is usually assumed that marketers use scientific methods to determine the price of their products. Nothing could be further from the truth. In almost every case, the process of decision is one of guesswork.

I saw the head chef at the Hotel Majestic fire a pastry cook because the poor devil could not get his brioches to rise straight. This ruthlessness made all the other chefs feel that they were working in the best kitchen in the world.

You don't have to be Christian to behave like a gentleman!

Rosser Reeves: ‘Do you want fine writing? Do you want masterpieces? Or do you want to see the goddamned sales curve start moving up?

The most effective leader is the one who satisfies the psychological needs of his followers. For example, it is one thing to be a good leader of Americans, who are raised in a tradition of democracy and have a high need for independence. But the American brand of democratic leadership doesn’t work so well in Europe, where executives have a psychological need for more autocratic leadership. That is one of many reasons why it is wise for American agencies to appoint locals to lead their foreign subsidiaries.

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

At the same time President Kennedy invited me - and all the other millions of Europe - to try the novelty of tourism in the U.S., he issued a secret directive to 180,000,000 Americans to be nice to us. How else to explain the embarrassing generosity, the overwhelming kindness, the extreme courtesy at every turn?

Search the parks in all your cities You’ll find no statues of committees