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Consumers do not buy products. They buy product benefits.

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
Consumers
Product
Benefits
Products

More quotes by 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
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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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Every ad is an investment in the long-term image of a brand.
David Ogilvy
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...consumers do not buy one brand of soap, or coffee, or detergent. They have a repertory of four or five brands, and move from one to another. They almost never buy a brand which has not been admitted to their repertory during its first year on the market.
David Ogilvy
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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.
David Ogilvy
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We all have a tendency to use research as a drunkard uses a lamppost – for support, not for illumination.
David Ogilvy
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I never tell one client that I cannot attend his sales convention because I have a previous engagement with another client successful polygamy depends upon pretending to each spouse that she is the only pebble on your beach.
David Ogilvy
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Write the way you talk. Naturally.
David Ogilvy
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Why should a manufacturer bet his money, perhaps the future of his company, on your instinct?
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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Creativity Is a fancy word for the work we have to do by Friday.
David Ogilvy
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Tell the truth, but make the truth fascinating.
David Ogilvy
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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.
David Ogilvy
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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
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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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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Headlines can be strengthend by the inclusion of emotional words like darling, love, fear, proud, friend and baby.
David Ogilvy
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I admire people with gentle manners who treat other people as human beings.
David Ogilvy
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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.
David Ogilvy
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Positioning should be decided before the advertising is created
David Ogilvy