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" 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. "
David Ogilvy
You
Family
Never
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" Good copy can't be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. You've got to believe in the product. "
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" If it doesn't sell, it isn't creative. "
David Ogilvy
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" The most important word in the vocabulary of advertising is TEST. If you pretest your product with consumers, and pretest your advertising, you will do well in the marketplace. "
David Ogilvy
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" I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment; they are coming to rely too much on research, and they use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post for support, rather than for illumination. "
David Ogilvy
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Support
" The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be. "
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Persuasive
" A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself. "
David Ogilvy
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" Can advertising foist an inferior product on the consumer? Bitter experience has taught me that it cannot. On those rare occasions when I have advertised products which consumer tests have found inferior to other products in the same field, the results have been disastrous. "
David Ogilvy
Results
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Experience
" I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information. "
David Ogilvy
Form
Information
Art
" The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but it can be more satisfying. "
David Ogilvy
Profitable
Excellence
Less
" There are very few men of genius in advertising agencies. But we need all we can find. Almost without exception they are disagreeable. Don't destroy them. They lay golden eggs. "
David Ogilvy
Advertising
Find
Genius
" Like a midwife, I make my living bringing new babies into the world, except that mine are new advertising campaigns. "
David Ogilvy
World
Like
New
" Advertising reflects the mores of society, but it does not influence them. "
David Ogilvy
Advertising
Them
Society
" If you ever have the good fortune to create a great advertising campaign, you will soon see another agency steal it. This is irritating, but don't let it worry you; nobody has ever built a brand by imitating somebody else's advertising. "
David Ogilvy
Worry
Advertising
Good
" 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. "
David Ogilvy
You
Aim
Look
" First, make yourself a reputation for being a creative genius. Second, surround yourself with partners who are better than you are. Third, leave them to go get on with it. "
David Ogilvy
Yourself
Surround Yourself
Creative
" The secret of long life is double careers. One to about age sixty, then another for the next thirty years. "
David Ogilvy
Age
Double
Next
" There is no need for advertisements to look like advertisements. If you make them look like editorial pages, you will attract about 50 per cent more readers. "
David Ogilvy
You
Will
Attract
" Many manufacturers secretly question whether advertising really sells their product, but are vaguely afraid that their competitors might steal a march on them if they stopped. "
David Ogilvy
Question
Advertising
Afraid
" The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife. "
David Ogilvy
She
Your
Business
" 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, we shall become a company of giants. "
David Ogilvy
Who
People
Become
" It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night. I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea. "
David Ogilvy
Ship
Advertising
Doubt
" Does advertising corrupt editors? Yes it does, but fewer editors than you may suppose... the vast majority of editors are incorruptible. "
David Ogilvy
You
Yes
Corrupt
" The headline is the 'ticket on the meat.' Use it to flag down readers who are prospects for the kind of product you are advertising. "
David Ogilvy
Kind
You
Meat
" It is flagrantly dishonest for an advertising agent to urge consumers to buy a product which he would not allow his own wife to buy. "
David Ogilvy
Advertising
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Own
" The relationship between a manufacturer and his advertising agency is almost as intimate as the relationship between a patient and his doctor. Make sure that you can life happily with your prospective client before you accept his account. "
David Ogilvy
Advertising
Relationship
Doctor
" Political advertising ought to be stopped. It's the only really dishonest kind of advertising that's left. It's totally dishonest. "
David Ogilvy
Political
Advertising
Kind
" Develop your eccentricities while you are young. That way, when you get old, people won't think you're going gaga. "
David Ogilvy
You
Way
Young
" 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. "
David Ogilvy
Good
My Life
Life
" You now have to decide what 'image' you want for your brand. Image means personality. Products, like people, have personalities, and they can make or break them in the market place. "
David Ogilvy
People
Brand
Personality
" It strikes me as bad manners for a magazine to accept one of my advertisements and then attack it editorially - like inviting a man to dinner then spitting in his eye. "
David Ogilvy
Me
Eye
Dinner