Top 200 David Ogilvy Quotes (2024 Update)

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

— David Ogilvy

Featured in: Creativity Quotes, Humor Quotes

2. “It’s not creative unless it sells.”

— David Ogilvy

Featured in: Creative Quotes

3. “Consumers don’t think how they feel. They don’t say what they think and they don’t do what they say.”

— David Ogilvy

4. “Play to win, but enjoy the fun.”

— David Ogilvy

5. “Consumers do not buy products. They buy product benefits.”

— David Ogilvy

6. “If you can’t be brilliant, at least be memorable.”

— David Ogilvy

7. “Tell the truth, but make the truth fascinating.”

— David Ogilvy

8. “Don’t count the people that you reach, reach the people who count.”

— David Ogilvy

9. “Where people aren’t having any fun, they seldom produce good work.”

— David Ogilvy

10. “Hard work never killed a man. Men die of boredom, psychological conflict, and disease. They do not die of hard work.”

— David Ogilvy

11. “Creativity needs discipline and freedom.”

— David Ogilvy

12. “If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.”

— David Ogilvy

13. “Don’t hire a dog, then bark yourself.”

— David Ogilvy

Featured in: Creativity Quotes

14. “Encourage innovation. Change is our lifeblood, stagnation our death knell.”

— David Ogilvy

Featured in: Innovation Quotes

15. “The best idea is the simplest.”

— David Ogilvy

16. “Big ideas are usually simple ideas.”

— David Ogilvy

17. “Any damn fool can put on a deal, but it takes genius, faith and perseverance to create a brand.”

— David Ogilvy

18. “Positioning should be decided before the advertising is created.”

— David Ogilvy

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

— David Ogilvy

20. “Compete with the immortals.”

— David Ogilvy

21. “I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information. When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative.’ I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product.”

— David Ogilvy

Featured in: Art Quotes

22. “Nobody has ever built a brand by imitating somebody else’s advertising.”

— David Ogilvy

23. “I admire people with gentle manners who treat other people as human beings.”

— David Ogilvy

24. “When you advertise fire extinguishers, open with the fire.”

— David Ogilvy

25. “A consumer is not a moron. She’s your wife. Don’t insult her intelligence, and don’t shock her.”

— David Ogilvy

26. “Unless your campaign has a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night.”

— David Ogilvy

27. “Great marketing only makes a bad product fail faster.”

— David Ogilvy

28. “We all have a tendency to use research as a drunkard uses a lamppost – for support, but not for illumination.”

— David Ogilvy

29. “Good products can be sold by honest advertising. If you don’t think the product is good, you have no business to be advertising it.”

— David Ogilvy

30. “Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving.”

— David Ogilvy

31. “People who think well, write well.”

— David Ogilvy

32. “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

33. “Nobody ever arrives at a very big idea through a conscious, rational thought process. It comes from your unconscious.”

— David Ogilvy

34. “My motto has always been: Only first class business and that in a first class way.”

— David Ogilvy

35. “If you can’t advertise yourself, what hope do you have of advertising anything else?”

— David Ogilvy

36. “Talent, I believe, is most likely to be found among nonconformists, dissenters, and rebels.”

— David Ogilvy

37. “I prefer the discipline of knowledge to the anarchy of ignorance.”

— David Ogilvy

38. “You will never win fame and fortune unless you invent big ideas.”

— David Ogilvy

39. “The headline is the most important element in most advertisements. It is the telegram which decides the reader whether to read the copy.”

— David Ogilvy

40. “Study the methods of your competitors and do the exact opposite.”

— David Ogilvy

41. “You cannot bore people into buying your product – you can only interest them in buying it.”

— David Ogilvy

42. “If you ever find a man who is better than you are – hire him. If necessary, pay him more than you pay yourself.”

— David Ogilvy

43. “Don’t bunt. Aim out of the ball park. Aim for the company of immortals.”

— David Ogilvy

44. “When people aren’t having any fun, they seldom produce good work. Kill the grimness with laughter. Encourage exuberance. Get rid of sad dogs that spread gloom.”

— David Ogilvy

45. “If you always hire people who are bigger than you are, we shall become a company of giants.”

— David Ogilvy

46. “Within every brand is a product, but not every product is a brand.”

— David Ogilvy

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

— David Ogilvy

48. “Repeat your winners. If you are lucky enough to write a good advertisement, repeat it until it stops selling. Scores of good advertisements have been discarded before they lost their potency.”

— David Ogilvy

49. “Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon.”

— David Ogilvy

50. “We admire people who work hard, who are objective and thorough. We detest office politicians, toadies, bullies, and pompous asses. We abhor ruthlessness. The way up our ladder is open to everybody. In promoting people to top jobs, we are influenced as much by their character as anything else.”

— David Ogilvy