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

David Ogilvy

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David Ogilvy
Age: 88 †
Born: 1911
Born: June 23
Died: 1999
Died: July 21
Businessman
Businessperson
Economist
Writer
West Horsley
Surrey
David MacKenzie Ogilvy
Original
Create
Sells
Entrepreneurial
Creative
Manage
Entrepreneurship
Business
Thinker
Inspirational
Innovation
Entrepreneur
Also
Management
Sell
World
Creativity
Useless
Unless
Originals
Modern

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Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.
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Never write an advertisement which you wouldn't want your own family to read. You wouldn't tell lies to your own wife. Don't tell them to mine. Do as you would be done by.
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Positioning should be decided before the advertising is created
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There are now unmistakeable signs of a trend in favor of superior products at premium prices. The consumer is not a moron, she is your wife.
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Never use tricky or irrelevant headlines… People read too fast to figure out what you are trying to say.
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Why do eight out of ten new consumer products fail? Sometimes because they are too new. The first cold cereals were rejected by consumers. More often new products fail because they are not new enough.
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I know of a brewer who sells more of his beer to the people who never see his advertising than to the people who see it every week. Bad advertising can unsell a product.
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The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but it can be more satisfying.
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Experience has taught me that advertisers get the best results when they pay their agency a flat fee. It is unrealistic to expect your agency to be impartial when its vested interest lies wholly in the direction of increasing your commissionable advertising.
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Headlines can be strengthend by the inclusion of emotional words like darling, love, fear, proud, friend and baby.
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A lot of today's campaigns are based on optimum positioning but are totally ineffective - because they are dull, or badly constructed, or ineptly written. If nobody reads your advertisement or looks at your commercial, it doesn't do you much good to have the right positioning.
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I prefer the discipline of knowledge to the anarchy of ignorance.
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Many of the greatest creations of man have been inspired by the desire to make money...If Oxford undergraduates were paid for their work, I would have performed miracles of scholarship and become Regius Professor of Modern History.
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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.
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My motto has always been: Only first class business and that in a first class way
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Don't hire a dog, then bark yourself
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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.
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Consumers do not buy products. They buy product benefits.
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The best idea is the simplest.
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Make sure you have a vice president in charge of your revolution, to engender ferment among your more conventional colleagues.
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