Quote

The manufacturer who finds himself up the creek is the short-sighted opportunist who siphons off all his advertising dollars for short-term promotions.

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
Finds
Advertising
Promotions
Dollars
Manufacturer
Short
Creek
Term
Opportunist
Creeks
Sighted
Promotion

More quotes by 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
Why do eight out of ten new consumer products fail? Sometimes because they are too new. The first cold cereals were rejected by consumers. More often new products fail because they are not new enough.
David Ogilvy
Image
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
Image
The secret of long life is double careers. One to about age sixty, then another for the next thirty years.
David Ogilvy
Image
The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but it can be more satisfying.
David Ogilvy
Image
What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form.
David Ogilvy
Image
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
Image
It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money.
David Ogilvy
Image
No sale, no commission. No commission, no eat. That made an impression on me.
David Ogilvy
Image
Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.
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
The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be.
David Ogilvy
Image
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.
David Ogilvy
Image
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.
David Ogilvy
Image
Study the methods of your competitors and do the exact opposite.
David Ogilvy
Image
Most headlines are set too big to be legible in the magazines or newspaper. Never approve a layout until you have seen it pasted into the magazine or newspaper for which it was destined. If you pin up the layouts on a bulletin board and appraise them from fifteen feet, you will produce posters.
David Ogilvy
Image
Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn't sell much of anything.
David Ogilvy
Image
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
Image
Our offices must always be headed by the kind of men who command respect. Not phonies, zeros or bastards.
David Ogilvy
Image
When you advertise fire extinguishers, open with the fire.
David Ogilvy