Quote

We all have a tendency to use research as a drunkard uses a lamppost – for support, not for illumination.

David Ogilvy

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

David Ogilvy
Age: 88 †
Born: 1911
Born: June 23
Died: 1999
Died: July 21
Businessman
Businessperson
Economist
Writer
West Horsley
Surrey
David MacKenzie Ogilvy
Use
Drunkard
Drunkards
Illumination
Tendency
Uses
Tendencies
Research
Support
Lamppost

More quotes by David Ogilvy

Image
It is the inescapable duty of management to fire incompetent people.
David Ogilvy
Image
No sale, no commission. No commission, no eat. That made an impression on me.
David Ogilvy
Image
Consumers don't think how they feel. They don't say what they think and they don't do what they say.
David Ogilvy
Image
Many manufacturers secretly question whether advertising really sells their product, but are vaguely afraid that their competitors might steal a march on them if they stopped.
David Ogilvy
Image
While you are responsible to your clients for sales results, you are responsible to consumers for the kind of advertising you bring into their homes.
David Ogilvy
Image
David Ogilvy made his copywriters come up 100 different headlines for every ad they wrote.
David Ogilvy
Image
Compete with the immortals
David Ogilvy
Image
Advertising reflects the mores of society, but it does not influence them.
David Ogilvy
Image
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
Image
Leaders grasp nettles.
David Ogilvy
Image
It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money.
David Ogilvy
Image
I always said that mega-mergers were for megalomaniacs.
David Ogilvy
Image
Study the methods of your competitors and do the exact opposite.
David Ogilvy
Image
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
Image
Political advertising ought to be stopped. It's the only really dishonest kind of advertising that's left. It's totally dishonest.
David Ogilvy
Image
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.
David Ogilvy
Image
Readers travel so fast they don't stop to decipher the meaning of obscure headlines.
David Ogilvy
Image
A lot of today's campaigns are based on optimum positioning but are totally ineffective - because they are dull, or badly constructed, or ineptly written. If nobody reads your advertisement or looks at your commercial, it doesn't do you much good to have the right positioning.
David Ogilvy
Image
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
Image
Headlines can be strengthend by the inclusion of emotional words like darling, love, fear, proud, friend and baby.
David Ogilvy