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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.

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
Much
Product
Never
Allowed
Products
Design
Advertisements
Television
Committees
Create
Messy
Business
Criticize
Today
Advertising

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Develop your eccentricities early, and no one will think you're going senile later in life
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People don't buy a new detergent because the manufacturer told a joke on television last night.
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Why should a manufacturer bet his money, perhaps the future of his company, on your instinct?
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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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The business community wants remarkable advertising, but turns a cold shoulder to the kind of people who can produce it. That is why most advertisements are so infernally dull.... our business needs massive transfusions of talent. And talent, I believe, is most likely to be found among nonconformists, dissenters, and rebels.
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My motto has always been: Only first class business and that in a first class way
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Creativity needs discipline and freedom.
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Consumers don't think how they feel. They don't say what they think and they don't do what they say.
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If it doesn't sell, it isn't creative.
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I always said that mega-mergers were for megalomaniacs.
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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.
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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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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.
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Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn't sell much of anything.
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I can't stand callow amateurs who aren't sufficiently interested in the craft of advertising to assume the posture of students.
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