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Tell the truth, but make the truth fascinating.

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
Make
Fascinating
Tell
Truth

More quotes by David Ogilvy

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Set exorbitant standards, and give your people hell when they don't live up to them. There is nothing so demoralizing as a boss who tolerates second rate work.
David Ogilvy
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Consumers do not buy products. They buy product benefits.
David Ogilvy
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The trouble with many copywriters in general agencies are that they don't really think in terms of selling. They have never written direct-response they have never tasted blood
David Ogilvy
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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.
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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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.
David Ogilvy
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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.
David Ogilvy
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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
David Ogilvy
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I always said that mega-mergers were for megalomaniacs.
David Ogilvy
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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.
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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The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be.
David Ogilvy
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Unless your campaign has a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night.
David Ogilvy
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Creativity Is a fancy word for the work we have to do by Friday.
David Ogilvy
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Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image.
David Ogilvy
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The best idea is the simplest.
David Ogilvy
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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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It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money.
David Ogilvy
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The business community wants remarkable advertising, but turns a cold shoulder to the kind of people who can produce it. That is why most advertisements are so infernally dull.... our business needs massive transfusions of talent. And talent, I believe, is most likely to be found among nonconformists, dissenters, and rebels.
David Ogilvy
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The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but it can be more satisfying.
David Ogilvy