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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
Advertise
Fire
Open

More quotes by 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.
David Ogilvy
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You make the best products you can, and you grow as fast as you deserve to.
David Ogilvy
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The advertisers who believe in the selling power of jingles have never had to sell anything.
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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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No sale, no commission. No commission, no eat. That made an impression on me.
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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 the inescapable duty of management to fire incompetent people.
David Ogilvy
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Consumers do not buy products. They buy product benefits.
David Ogilvy
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Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving. Testing was used in advertising decades ago. The internet has made testing so easy that every online marketer can use it to improve advertising results. Google content experiment is a free tool for you to do split testing.
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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Advertising reflects the mores of society, but it does not influence them.
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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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.
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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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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Readers travel so fast they don't stop to decipher the meaning of obscure headlines.
David Ogilvy
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Consumers don't think how they feel. They don't say what they think and they don't do what they say.
David Ogilvy
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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
David Ogilvy
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I admire people with gentle manners who treat other people as human beings.
David Ogilvy
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I prefer the discipline of knowledge to the anarchy of ignorance.
David Ogilvy