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Readers travel so fast they don't stop to decipher the meaning of obscure headlines.

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
Reader
Stop
Decipher
Headlines
Obscure
Readers
Fast
Travel
Meaning

More quotes by David Ogilvy

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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.
David Ogilvy
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We exist to build the business of our clients. The recommendations we make to them should be the recommendations we would make if we owned their companies, without regard to our own short-term interest. This earns their respect, which is the greatest asset we can have.
David Ogilvy
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If you ever find a man who is better than you are - hire him. If necessary, pay him more than you pay yourself.
David Ogilvy
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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.
David Ogilvy
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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
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If you have all the research, all the ground rules, all the directives, all the data - it doesn't mean the ad is written. Then you've got to close the door and write something - that is the moment of truth which we all try to postpone as long as possible.
David Ogilvy
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If you can’t advertise yourself, what hope do you have of advertising anything else?
David Ogilvy
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I know of a brewer who sells more of his beer to the people who never see his advertising than to the people who see it every week. Bad advertising can unsell a product.
David Ogilvy
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The trouble with many copywriters in general agencies are that they don't really think in terms of selling. They have never written direct-response they have never tasted blood
David Ogilvy
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I prefer the discipline of knowledge to the anarchy of ignorance.
David Ogilvy
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Experience has taught me that advertisers get the best results when they pay their agency a flat fee. It is unrealistic to expect your agency to be impartial when its vested interest lies wholly in the direction of increasing your commissionable advertising.
David Ogilvy
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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
David Ogilvy
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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.
David Ogilvy
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Tell the truth, but make the truth fascinating.
David Ogilvy
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The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.
David Ogilvy
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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.
David Ogilvy
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Political advertising ought to be stopped. It's the only really dishonest kind of advertising that's left. It's totally dishonest.
David Ogilvy
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The most important word in the vocabulary of advertising is TEST. If you pretest your product with consumers, and pretest your advertising, you will do well in the marketplace.
David Ogilvy
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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
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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