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I can't stand callow amateurs who aren't sufficiently interested in the craft of advertising to assume the posture of students.

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
Interested
Sufficiently
Students
Posture
Stand
Craft
Crafts
Assume
Advertising
Assuming
Callow
Aren
Amateurs

More quotes by David Ogilvy

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The consumer isn't a moron she is your wife. You insult her intelligence if you assume that a mere slogan and a few vapid adjectives will persuade her to buy anything. She wants all the information you can give her.
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If you always hire people who are bigger than you are, we shall become a company of giants
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Few of the great creators have bland personalities. They are cantankerous egotists, the kind of men who are unwelcome in the modern corporation.
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The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be.
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Great hospitals do two things. They look after patients, and they teach young doctors. We look after clients, and we teach young advertising people.
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Candor compels me to admit that I have no conclusive research to support my view that jingles are less persuasive than the spoken word. You'd run like hell if a salesman came to your door and began singing at you. Why do it in advertising?
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Make sure you have a vice president in charge of your revolution, to engender ferment among your more conventional colleagues.
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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.
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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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What is a good advertisement? An advertisement which pleases you because of its style, or an advertisement which sells the most? They are seldom the same.
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Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.
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What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form.
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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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A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.
David Ogilvy
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You make the best products you can, and you grow as fast as you deserve to.
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Any damn fool can put on a deal, but it takes genius, faith and perseverance to create a brand.
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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.
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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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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.
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I never write fewer than sixteen headlines for a single advertisement.
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