Quote

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

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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
Though
Addresses
Stadiums
Read
Pretend
Gathered
Business
Readers
Copy
Together
Marketing
Clients
Writing
Advertising
Behalf
People
Letters
Address
Reader
Copies
Stadium
Alone
Letter
Client

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Great hospitals do two things. They look after patients, and they teach young doctors. We look after clients, and we teach young advertising people.
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If you always hire people who are bigger than you are, we shall become a company of giants
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Tell the truth, but make the truth fascinating.
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Encourage innovation. Change is our lifeblood, stagnation our death knell.
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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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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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Don't hire a dog, then bark yourself
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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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Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.
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Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image.
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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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What you learn is more important than what you earn.
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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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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.
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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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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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