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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

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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
Tendency
Uses
Tendencies
Research
Support
Lamppost
Use
Drunkard
Drunkards
Illumination

More quotes by David Ogilvy

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Can advertising foist an inferior product on the consumer? Bitter experience has taught me that it cannot. On those rare occasions when I have advertised products which consumer tests have found inferior to other products in the same field, the results have been disastrous.
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The secret of long life is double careers. One to about age sixty, then another for the next thirty years.
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Creativity Is a fancy word for the work we have to do by Friday.
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A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.
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Leaders grasp nettles.
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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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Why should a manufacturer bet his money, perhaps the future of his company, on your instinct?
David Ogilvy
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Headlines can be strengthend by the inclusion of emotional words like darling, love, fear, proud, friend and baby.
David Ogilvy
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In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.
David Ogilvy
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When you advertise fire extinguishers, open with the fire.
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.
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I never write fewer than sixteen headlines for a single advertisement.
David Ogilvy
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It is the inescapable duty of management to fire incompetent people.
David Ogilvy
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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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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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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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Unless your campaign has a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night.
David Ogilvy
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Encourage innovation. Change is our lifeblood, stagnation our death knell.
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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What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form.
David Ogilvy