WORDS OF WISDOM

David Ogilvy was a college dropout, a chef, a door-to-door salesman, and a copywriter. Starting with no clients and a staff of two, he built one of the largest advertising agencies in the world.

Need some inspiration? Here are some of his most famous quotes. Hey, thats just his opinion.
“The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.”

“I have a theory that the best ads come from personal experience. Some of the good ones I have done have really come out of the real experience of my life, and somehow this has come over as true and valid and persuasive.”

“I don’t know the rules of grammar… If you’re trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think. We try to write in the vernacular.”

“Good copy can’t be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. You’ve got to believe in the product.”

"If it doesn't sell, it isn't creative."

"Good copy can't be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. You've got to believe in the product."

"I once used the word OBSOLETE in a headline, only to discover that 43 per cent of housewives had no idea what it meant. In another headline, I used the word INEFFABLE, only to discover that I didn't know what it meant myself."

"On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar."

"The advertisers who believe in the selling power of jingles have never had to sell anything."

"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"

"The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be."

"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."

"There is no need for advertisements to look like advertisements. If you make them look like editorial pages, you will attract about 50 per cent more readers."

"What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it."

"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."

"Never write an advertisement which you wouldn't want your family to read. You wouldn't tell lies to your own wife. Don't tell them to mine."

"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."

"Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals."

"I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information."

"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."

"Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn't sell much of anything."

“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.”

“First, make yourself a reputation for being a creative genius. Second, surround yourself with partners who are better than you are. Third, leave them to go get on with it.”