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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The mission of a great school is not to cram you with facts so that you can regurgitate them...This gives many boys such a distaste for learning that they never read another book as long as they live. No, the mission is to inspire you with a taste for scholarship - a taste which will last you all your life.
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Consumers still buy products whose advertising promises them value for money, beauty, nutrition, relief from suffering, social status and so on.
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If you can’t advertise yourself, what hope do you have of advertising anything else?
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The worst fault a salesman can commit is to be a bore...... Pretend to be vastly interested in any subject the prospects shows an interest in.
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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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The secret of long life is double careers. One to about age sixty, then another for the next thirty years.
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Consumers do not buy products. They buy product benefits.
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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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It is the inescapable duty of management to fire incompetent people.
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Encourage innovation. Change is our lifeblood, stagnation our death knell.
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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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No sale, no commission. No commission, no eat. That made an impression on me.
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Advertising reflects the mores of society, but it does not influence them.
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If you ever find a man who is better than you are - hire him. If necessary, pay him more than you pay yourself.
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Good products can be sold by honest advertising. If you don't think the product is good, you have no business to be advertising it.
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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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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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If it doesn't sell, it isn't creative.
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