Quote

Many manufacturers secretly question whether advertising really sells their product, but are vaguely afraid that their competitors might steal a march on them if they stopped.

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
Might
Stopped
Many
Advertising
Manufacturers
Really
Sells
Vaguely
Product
Secretly
Products
Competitors
Afraid
Steal
Question
March
Whether
Stealing

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If you have a truly big idea, the wrong technique won't kill it. And if you don't have a big idea, the right technique won't help you
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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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Readers travel so fast they don't stop to decipher the meaning of obscure headlines.
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Big ideas are usually simple ideas.
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At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.
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Leaders grasp nettles.
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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.
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I don't believe in tricky advertising, I don't believe in cute advertising, I don't believe in comic advertising. The people who perpetrate that kind of advertising never had to sell anything in their lives
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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.
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Madison Avenue is full of masochists who unconsciously provoke rejection by their clients. I know brilliant men who have lost every account they have ever handled.
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What you learn is more important than what you earn.
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Write the way you talk. Naturally.
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The success of a meeting often depends on having the right documents - proofs, artwork, schedules, research charts, etc. - present at the start of the meeting. All too often we arrive like plumbers, leaving our tools behind.
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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.
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Study the methods of your competitors and do the exact opposite.
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