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Some manufacturers illustrate their advertisements with abstract paintings. I would only do this if I wished to conceal from the reader what I was advertising.

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
Paintings
Abstract
Advertising
Reader
Illustrate
Painting
Manufacturers
Would
Advertisements
Conceal
Wished

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Unless your campaign has a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night.
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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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Big ideas are usually simple ideas.
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I never assign a product to a writer unless I know that he is personally interested in it. Every time I have written a bad campaign, it has been because the product did not interest me.
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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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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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If you have all the research, all the ground rules, all the directives, all the data - it doesn't mean the ad is written. Then you've got to close the door and write something - that is the moment of truth which we all try to postpone as long as possible.
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While you are responsible to your clients for sales results, you are responsible to consumers for the kind of advertising you bring into their homes.
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Candor compels me to admit that I have no conclusive research to support my view that jingles are less persuasive than the spoken word. You'd run like hell if a salesman came to your door and began singing at you. Why do it in advertising?
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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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Readers travel so fast they don't stop to decipher the meaning of obscure headlines.
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Political advertising ought to be stopped. It's the only really dishonest kind of advertising that's left. It's totally dishonest.
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Any damn fool can put on a deal, but it takes genius, faith and perseverance to create a brand.
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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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Most headlines are set too big to be legible in the magazines or newspaper. Never approve a layout until you have seen it pasted into the magazine or newspaper for which it was destined. If you pin up the layouts on a bulletin board and appraise them from fifteen feet, you will produce posters.
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I admire people with gentle manners who treat other people as human beings.
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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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On the average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy.
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You can't save souls in an empty church.
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