Quote

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
Research
Support
Lamppost
Use
Drunkard
Drunkards
Illumination
Tendency
Uses
Tendencies

More quotes by David Ogilvy

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If you tell lies about a product, you will be found out - either by the Government, which will prosecute you, or by the consumer, who will punish you by not buying your product a second time.
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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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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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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.
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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.
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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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Much of the messy advertising you see on television today is the product of committees. Committees can criticize advertisements, but they should never be allowed to create them.
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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.
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Develop your eccentricities early, and no one will think you're going senile later in life
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The consumer isn't a moron she is your wife.
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Our offices must always be headed by the kind of men who command respect. Not phonies, zeros or bastards.
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The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but it can be more satisfying.
David Ogilvy
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At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.
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The more story-appeal there is in the picture or in the photograph, the more people would look at your ad
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Positioning should be decided before the advertising is created
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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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Consumers still buy products whose advertising promises them value for money, beauty, nutrition, relief from suffering, social status and so on.
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I always said that mega-mergers were for megalomaniacs.
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No sale, no commission. No commission, no eat. That made an impression on me.
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.
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