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The best idea is the simplest.

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
Simplest
Idea
Best
Ideas

More quotes by 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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Never use tricky or irrelevant headlines… People read too fast to figure out what you are trying to say.
David Ogilvy
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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?
David Ogilvy
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Headlines can be strengthend by the inclusion of emotional words like darling, love, fear, proud, friend and baby.
David Ogilvy
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The secret of long life is double careers. One to about age sixty, then another for the next thirty years.
David Ogilvy
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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
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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.
David Ogilvy
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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.
David Ogilvy
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Write the way you talk. Naturally.
David Ogilvy
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Compete with the immortals
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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The best leaders are apt to be found among those executives who have a strong component of unorthodoxy in their character. Instead of resisting innovation, they symbolize it.
David Ogilvy
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Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn't sell much of anything.
David Ogilvy
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Creativity Is a fancy word for the work we have to do by Friday.
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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At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.
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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Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.
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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Set exorbitant standards, and give your people hell when they don't live up to them. There is nothing so demoralizing as a boss who tolerates second rate work.
David Ogilvy