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Study the methods of your competitors and do the exact opposite.

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
Study
Competitors
Exact
Methods
Opposite
Opposites
Method

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Do not address your readers as though they were gathered together in a stadium. When people read your copy, they are alone. Pretend you are writing to each of them a letter on behalf of your client.
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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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I never write fewer than sixteen headlines for a single advertisement.
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If you ever have the good fortune to create a great advertising campaign, you will soon see another agency steal it. This is irritating, but don't let it worry you nobody has ever built a brand by imitating somebody else's advertising.
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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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Compete with the immortals
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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.
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It is the inescapable duty of management to fire incompetent people.
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No sale, no commission. No commission, no eat. That made an impression on me.
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Training should not be confined to trainees. It should be a continuous process, and should include the entire professional staff of the agency. The more our people learn, the more useful they can be to our clients.
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What you learn is more important than what you earn.
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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.
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I'd like to be remembered, as a copywriter who had some big ideas. That's what the advertising business is all about. Big ideas
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Why should a manufacturer bet his money, perhaps the future of his company, on your instinct?
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I never assign a product to a writer unless I know that he is personally interested in it. Every time I have written a bad campaign, it has been because the product did not interest me.
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Unless your campaign has a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night.
David Ogilvy
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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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Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.
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Creativity needs discipline and freedom.
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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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