David Ogilvy Quotes

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.

Whatever you do, for goodness sake, don’t change the name of your corporation to initials.

Hire people who are better than you are, then leave them to get on with it… Look for people who will aim for the remarkable, who will not settle for the routine.

All my experience says that for a great many products, long copy sells more than short.

Resist the temptation to write the kind of copy which wins awards. I am always gratified when I win an award, but most of the campaigns which produce results never win awards because they don’t draw attention to themselves.

It is the professional duty of the advertising agent to conceal his artifice. When Aeschines spoke, they said, “How well he speaks.” But when Demosthenes spoke, they said, “Let us march against Philip.” I’m in for Demosthenes.

People buy products, not television commercials.

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.

Dr. Gallup reports that if you say something which you don’t also illustrate, the viewer immediately forgets it. I conclude that if you don’t show it there is no point in saying it. Try running your commercial with the sound turned off; if it doesn’t tell without sound, it is useless.

The purpose of a commercial is not to entertain the viewer but to sell him. Horace Schwerin reports that there is no correlation between people liking commercials and being sold by them. But this does not mean that your commercials should be deliberately bad-mannered. On the contrary, there is reason to believe that it pays to make them human and friendly, if you can do so without being unctuous.

I have found that it is easier to double the selling power of a commercial than to double the audience of a program. This may come as news to Hollywood hidalgos who produce programs and look down their noses at us obscure copywriters who write the commercials.

Next time you decide to have the sales pitch sung in a television or radio commercial, play the song to a half dozen people who know nothing about the product. Then ask them what it said.

Candor compels me to admit to support my view that jingles are less persuasive than the spoken word. It is based on the difficulty I always experience in hearing the words in jingles, and on my experience as a door-to-door salesment; I never sang to my prospects. The advertisers who believe in the selling power of jingles have never had to sell anything.

Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon. They say that the commercials for food products must include “an affirmative eating experience.” The latest horror is SUBOPTIMIZE.

It is a mistake to use highfalutin language when you advertise to uneducated people. I once used the word OBSOLETE in a headline, only to discover that 33% of housewives had no idea of what it meant. In another headline, I used the word INEFFABLE, only to discover that I didn't know what it meant myself.