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" 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. "

David Ogilvy

Copy

Average

Body

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" Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon. "

" Don't bunt. Aim out of the ball park. Aim for the company of immortals. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it. "

David Ogilvy

Advertising

Say

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

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

" The secret of long life is double careers. One to about age sixty, then another for the next thirty years. "

David Ogilvy

Age

Double

" Many people - and I think I am one of them - are more productive when they've had a little to drink. I find if I drink two or three brandies, I'm far better able to write. "

" What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form. "

" Political advertising ought to be stopped. It's the only really dishonest kind of advertising that's left. It's totally dishonest. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" The advertisers who believe in the selling power of jingles have never had to sell anything. "

" 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. "

David Ogilvy

Language

Think

" 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. "

" 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

Experience

" 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. "

" Like a midwife, I make my living bringing new babies into the world, except that mine are new advertising campaigns. "

David Ogilvy

World

New

" Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things. "

" Much of the messy advertising you see on television today is the product of committees. Committees can criticize advertisements, but they should never be allowed to create them. "

" 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. "

" Good copy can't be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. You've got to believe in the product. "

" 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

Own

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

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

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

" 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. "