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Never use tricky or irrelevant headlines… People read too fast to figure out what you are trying to say.

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
Read
Use
Trying
Headlines
Never
Tricky
People
Irrelevant
Fast
Figure
Figures

More quotes by David Ogilvy

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No sale, no commission. No commission, no eat. That made an impression on me.
David Ogilvy
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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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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.
David Ogilvy
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It is the inescapable duty of management to fire incompetent people.
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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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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.
David Ogilvy
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Leaders grasp nettles.
David Ogilvy
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The best leaders are apt to be found among those executives who have a strong component of unorthodoxy in their character. Instead of resisting innovation, they symbolize it.
David Ogilvy
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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.
David Ogilvy
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I have an inviolable rule against employing nepots and spouses, because they breed politics. Whenever two people get married, one of them must depart - preferably the female, to look after the baby.
David Ogilvy
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The manufacturer who finds himself up the creek is the short-sighted opportunist who siphons off all his advertising dollars for short-term promotions.
David Ogilvy
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I always said that mega-mergers were for megalomaniacs.
David Ogilvy
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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.
David Ogilvy
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Big ideas are usually simple ideas.
David Ogilvy
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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.
David Ogilvy
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Why should a manufacturer bet his money, perhaps the future of his company, on your instinct?
David Ogilvy
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We all have a tendency to use research as a drunkard uses a lamppost – for support, not for illumination.
David Ogilvy
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Remove advertising, disable a person or firm from proclaiming its wares and their merits, and the whole of society and of the economy is transformed. The enemies of advertising are the enemies of freedom.
David Ogilvy
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It has been found that the less an advertisement looks like an advertisement and the more it looks like an editorial, the more readers stop, look, and read.
David Ogilvy
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The secret of long life is double careers. One to about age sixty, then another for the next thirty years.
David Ogilvy