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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
Fascinating
Tell
Truth
Make

More quotes by David Ogilvy

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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.
David Ogilvy
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Study the methods of your competitors and do the exact opposite.
David Ogilvy
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Readers travel so fast they don't stop to decipher the meaning of obscure headlines.
David Ogilvy
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Advertising reflects the mores of society, but it does not influence them.
David Ogilvy
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I can't stand callow amateurs who aren't sufficiently interested in the craft of advertising to assume the posture of students.
David Ogilvy
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If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.
David Ogilvy
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What is a good advertisement? An advertisement which pleases you because of its style, or an advertisement which sells the most? They are seldom the same.
David Ogilvy
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Few of the great creators have bland personalities. They are cantankerous egotists, the kind of men who are unwelcome in the modern corporation.
David Ogilvy
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If you can’t advertise yourself, what hope do you have of advertising anything else?
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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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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Some manufacturers illustrate their advertisements with abstract paintings. I would only do this if I wished to conceal from the reader what I was advertising.
David Ogilvy
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Creativity needs discipline and freedom.
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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It is flagrantly dishonest for an advertising agent to urge consumers to buy a product which he would not allow his own wife to buy.
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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...consumers do not buy one brand of soap, or coffee, or detergent. They have a repertory of four or five brands, and move from one to another. They almost never buy a brand which has not been admitted to their repertory during its first year on the market.
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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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.
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