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Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn't sell much of anything.

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
Nine
Percent
Business
Doesn
Anything
Ninety
Much
Advertising
Sell
Sells

More quotes by David Ogilvy

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Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image.
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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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No sale, no commission. No commission, no eat. That made an impression on me.
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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 figure that my staff will be less reluctant to work overtime if I work longer hours than they do.
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Madison Avenue is full of masochists who unconsciously provoke rejection by their clients. I know brilliant men who have lost every account they have ever handled.
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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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Creativity Is a fancy word for the work we have to do by Friday.
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It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money.
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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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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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You can't save souls in an empty church.
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We exist to build the business of our clients. The recommendations we make to them should be the recommendations we would make if we owned their companies, without regard to our own short-term interest. This earns their respect, which is the greatest asset we can have.
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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.
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Lazy and superficial men and women do not produce superior work.
David Ogilvy
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Creativity needs discipline and freedom.
David Ogilvy
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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.
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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Tell the truth, but make the truth fascinating.
David Ogilvy
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When you advertise fire extinguishers, open with the fire.
David Ogilvy