David Ogilvy Quotes

The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.

The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife.

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

Good copy can’t be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living.

People are rarely rational. They are driven by their emotions, needs, and desires.

The best way to persuade people is with your ears – by listening to them.

A good advertisement is one that sells the product without drawing attention to itself.

Make your advertisements reflect your products, not your competitors’.

Don’t bunt. Aim out of the ballpark. Aim for the company of immortals.

Never write an advertisement which you wouldn’t want your family to read.

Advertising is a great mirror of society.

The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be.

The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but it can be more satisfying.

You can’t save souls in an empty church.

I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information.

Big ideas are usually simple ideas.

The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.

There isn’t any significant difference between the various brands in the whiskey family.

I have a theory that the best ads come from personal experience.

David Ogilvy Quotes part 2

Tell the truth, but make the truth fascinating.

Creativity may well be the last legal unfair competitive advantage we can take to run over the competition.

A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.

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

Develop your eccentricities while you are young. That way, when you get old, people won’t think you’re going gaga.

Leaders grasp nettles.

Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving.

Don’t be a can’t-do person. Be a can-do person.

Never write an advertisement which you wouldn’t want your family to read. You wouldn’t tell lies to your own wife. Don’t tell them to mine.

The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be.

I am a lousy copywriter. I know that. But when I don’t know what to do, I look at what Ogilvy said to do. When I do know what to do, I still look at what Ogilvy said to do.

The consumer is not a moron; she is your wife.

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.

Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.

Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn’t sell much of anything.

Brand names are not words. They are images of ideas.

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

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.

Develop your eccentricities while you are young. That way, when you get old, people won’t think you’re going gaga.

On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.

If you cannot or will not measure your financial return on advertising, I would sooner you stopped wasting your money.

The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be.

I don’t know the rules of grammar… If you’re trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think. We try to write in the vernacular.

The consumer is not a moron, she is your wife. You insult her intelligence only at your own risk.

Develop your eccentricities while you are young. That way, when you get old, people won’t think you’re going gaga.

Good writing is not a natural gift. You have to learn to write well.

There are very few original ideas. The writer’s job is to assemble them.

You now have to decide what ‘image’ you want pany of immortals.

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.

People read what interests them. Sometimes, it’s an ad.

Creativity about life, in all aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.