Top 200 David Ogilvy Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “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

52. “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

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

— David Ogilvy

54. “A well-run restaurant is like a winning baseball team. It makes the most of every crew member’s talent and takes advantage of every split-second opportunity to speed up service.”

— David Ogilvy

55. “Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.”

— David Ogilvy

56. “When you reach for the stars, you may not quite get one, but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.’ Pursuit.”

— David Ogilvy

57. “The trouble with market research is that people don’t think what they feel, they don’t say what they think and they don’t do what they say.”

— David Ogilvy

58. “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

59. “Never write more than two pages on any subject.”

— David Ogilvy

60. “You aren’t advertising to a standing army; you are advertising to a moving parade.”

— David Ogilvy

61. “When you have nothing to say, sing it.”

— David Ogilvy

62. “At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.”

— David Ogilvy

63. “You have only 30 seconds in a TV commercial. If you grab attention in the first frame with a visual surprise, you stand a better chance of holding the viewer. People screen out a lot of commercials because they open with something dull. When you advertise fire-extinguishers, open with the fire.”

— David Ogilvy

64. “The temptation to entertain instead of selling is contagious.”

— David Ogilvy

65. “If you want ACTION, don’t write. Go and tell the guy what you want.”

— David Ogilvy

66. “On the average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy.”

— David Ogilvy

67. “The psychiatrists say that everybody should have a hobby. The hobby I recommend is advertising.”

— David Ogilvy

68. “You can’t save souls in an empty church.”

— David Ogilvy

69. “Training should not be confined to trainees. It should be a continuous process, and should include the entire professional staff of the agency. The more our people learn, the more useful they can be to our clients.”

— David Ogilvy

70. “We exist to build the business of our clients. The recommendations we make to them should be the recommendations we would make if we owned their companies, without regard to our own short-term interest. This earns their respect, which is the greatest asset we can have.”

— David Ogilvy

71. “What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it.”

— David Ogilvy

72. “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

73. “The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife. You insult her intelligence if you assume that a mere slogan and a few vapid adjectives will persuade her to buy anything. She wants all the information you can give her.”

— David Ogilvy

74. “Give people a taste of Old Crow, and tell them it’s Old Crow. Then give them another taste of Old Crow, but tell them it’s Jack Daniel’s. Ask them which they prefer. They’ll think the two drinks are quite different. They are tasting images.”

— David Ogilvy

75. “Creativity Is a fancy word for the work we have to do by Friday.”

— David Ogilvy

76. “It has been found that the less an advertisement looks like an advertisement and the more it looks like an editorial, the more readers stop, look, and read.”

— David Ogilvy

77. “If you tell lies about a product, you will be found out – either by the Government, which will prosecute you, or by the consumer, who will punish you by not buying your product a second time.”

— David Ogilvy

78. “Write the way you talk. Naturally.”

— David Ogilvy

79. “The headlines which work best are those which promise the reader a benefit.”

— David Ogilvy

80. “David Ogilvy made his copywriters come up 100 different headlines for every ad they wrote.”

— David Ogilvy

81. “Every ad is an investment in the long-term image of a brand.”

— David Ogilvy

82. “Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving. Testing was used in advertising decades ago. The internet has made testing so easy that every online marketer can use it to improve advertising results. Google content experiment is a free tool for you to do split testing.”

— David Ogilvy

83. “Be more ambitious. Don’t bunt. When you get a job to do a story or an ad, try and hit the ball out of the park every time.”

— David Ogilvy

84. “Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things.”

— David Ogilvy

85. “Whenever you can, make the product itself the hero of your advertising. If you think the product too dull, I have news for you: there are no dull products, only dull writers.”

— David Ogilvy

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

— David Ogilvy

87. “Set exorbitant standards, and give your people hell when they don’t live up to them. There is nothing so demoralizing as a boss who tolerates second rate work.”

— David Ogilvy

88. “Only amateurs use short copy.”

— David Ogilvy

89. “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

90. “Nobody should be allowed to create general advertising until he has served his apprenticeship in direct-response.”

— David Ogilvy

91. “The trouble with many copywriters in general agencies are that they don’t really think in terms of selling. They have never written direct-response; they have never tasted blood.”

— David Ogilvy

92. “I’d like to be remembered, as a copywriter who had some big ideas. That’s what the advertising business is all about. Big ideas.”

— David Ogilvy

93. “The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be. Before people making a buying decision, they have many questions. For example, why they should buy from you, why your product is better than other similar products, why they should trust you, and why they should buy it now, etc.”

— David Ogilvy

94. “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.”

— David Ogilvy

95. “Nowadays it is the fashion to pretend that no single individual is ever responsible for a successful advertising campaign. This emphasis on “teamwork” is bunkum – a conspiracy of the mediocre majority.”

— David Ogilvy

96. “Great hospitals do two things. They look after patients, and they teach young doctors. We look after clients, and we teach young advertising people.”

— David Ogilvy

97. “I once used the word OBSOLETE in a headline, only to discover that 43 per cent of housewives had no idea what it meant. In another headline, I used the word INEFFABLE, only to discover that I didn’t know what it meant myself.”

— David Ogilvy

98. “When copywriters argue with me about some esoteric word they want to use, I say to them, ‘Get on a bus. Go to Iowa. Stay on a farm for a week and talk to the farmer. Come back to New York by train and talk to your fellow passengers in the day-coach. If you still want to use the word, go ahead.”

— David Ogilvy

99. “I have noticed that agencies which are full of fun and ferment seem to create the best advertising. If you are not happy in advertising, for goodness sake find a job in which you would be happy. For as far as I know, we pass this way only once.”

— David Ogilvy

100. “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