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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

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What you learn is more important than what you earn.
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The more story-appeal there is in the picture or in the photograph, the more people would look at your ad
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The relationship between a manufacturer and his advertising agency is almost as intimate as the relationship between a patient and his doctor. Make sure that you can life happily with your prospective client before you accept his account.
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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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Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn't sell much of anything.
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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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You can't save souls in an empty church.
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I never tell one client that I cannot attend his sales convention because I have a previous engagement with another client successful polygamy depends upon pretending to each spouse that she is the only pebble on your beach.
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If you have a truly big idea, the wrong technique won't kill it. And if you don't have a big idea, the right technique won't help you
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Never write an advertisement which you wouldn't want your own family to read. You wouldn't tell lies to your own wife. Don't tell them to mine. Do as you would be done by.
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I never write fewer than sixteen headlines for a single advertisement.
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On the average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy.
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David Ogilvy made his copywriters come up 100 different headlines for every ad they wrote.
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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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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.
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Creativity needs discipline and freedom.
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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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Tell the truth, but make the truth fascinating.
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I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information. When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative.’ I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product.
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Don't hire a dog, then bark yourself
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