Quote

You have only 30 seconds in a TV commercial. If you grab attention in the first frame with a visual surprise, you stand a better chance of holding the viewer. People screen out a lot of commercials because they open with something dull. When you advertise fire-extinguishers, open with the fire.

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
Attention
Screen
Commercials
Chance
Screens
Grab
Better
Holding
Viewers
Firsts
Dull
Frame
First
Surprise
Visuals
Something
Stand
Visual
People
Fire
Commercial
Advertise
Open
Seconds
Viewer

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It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money.
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The consumer isn't a moron she is your wife.
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Tell the truth, but make the truth fascinating.
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Positioning should be decided before the advertising is created
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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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The secret of long life is double careers. One to about age sixty, then another for the next thirty years.
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In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.
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We all have a tendency to use research as a drunkard uses a lamppost – for support, not for illumination.
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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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Unless your campaign has a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night.
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I'd like to be remembered, as a copywriter who had some big ideas. That's what the advertising business is all about. Big ideas
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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.
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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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If it doesn't sell, it isn't creative.
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