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I don't believe in tricky advertising, I don't believe in cute advertising, I don't believe in comic advertising. The people who perpetrate that kind of advertising never had to sell anything in their lives

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
People
Sell
Sells
Comic
Lives
Anything
Perpetrate
Kind
Tricky
Believe
Cute
Never
Advertising

More quotes by 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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What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form.
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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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.
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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My motto has always been: Only first class business and that in a first class way
David Ogilvy
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The consumer isn't a moron she is your wife.
David Ogilvy
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When you advertise fire extinguishers, open with the fire.
David Ogilvy
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Make sure you have a vice president in charge of your revolution, to engender ferment among your more conventional colleagues.
David Ogilvy
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You make the best products you can, and you grow as fast as you deserve to.
David Ogilvy
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Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn't sell much of anything.
David Ogilvy
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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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Many manufacturers secretly question whether advertising really sells their product, but are vaguely afraid that their competitors might steal a march on them if they stopped.
David Ogilvy
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Many of the greatest creations of man have been inspired by the desire to make money...If Oxford undergraduates were paid for their work, I would have performed miracles of scholarship and become Regius Professor of Modern History.
David Ogilvy
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If you always hire people who are bigger than you are, we shall become a company of giants
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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Headlines can be strengthend by the inclusion of emotional words like darling, love, fear, proud, friend and baby.
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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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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Develop your eccentricities early, and no one will think you're going senile later in life
David Ogilvy