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

More quotes by 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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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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When you advertise fire extinguishers, open with the fire.
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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The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.
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.
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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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My motto has always been: Only first class business and that in a first class way
David Ogilvy
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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.
David Ogilvy
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Study the methods of your competitors and do the exact opposite.
David Ogilvy
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You have only 30 seconds in a TV commercial. If you grab attention in the first frame with a visual surprise, you stand a better chance of holding the viewer. People screen out a lot of commercials because they open with something dull. When you advertise fire-extinguishers, open with the fire.
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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Consumers don't think how they feel. They don't say what they think and they don't do what they say.
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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Any damn fool can put on a deal, but it takes genius, faith and perseverance to create a brand.
David Ogilvy
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If you tell lies about a product, you will be found out - either by the Government, which will prosecute you, or by the consumer, who will punish you by not buying your product a second time.
David Ogilvy
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The mission of a great school is not to cram you with facts so that you can regurgitate them...This gives many boys such a distaste for learning that they never read another book as long as they live. No, the mission is to inspire you with a taste for scholarship - a taste which will last you all your life.
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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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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Develop your eccentricities early, and no one will think you're going senile later in life
David Ogilvy