Quotes from David Ogilvy

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. 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. Good products can be sold by honest advertising. If you don't think the product is good, you have no business to be advertising it.

Committees can criticize, but they cannot create.

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

The trouble with market research is that people don't think what they feel, they don't say what they think and they don't do what they say.

I used to start my questionnaires by asking, 'Which would you rather hear on the radio tonight — Jack Benny or a Shakespeare play?' If the respondent said Shakespeare, I knew he was a liar and broke off the interview.

Most campaigns are too complicated. They reflect a long list of objectives, and try to reconcile the divergent views of too many executives. By attempting to cover too many things, they achieve nothing. Many

It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night. I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea.

The day after a new business presentation, send the prospect a three-page letter summarizing the reasons why he should pick your agency. This will help him make the right decision. If

Aldous Huxley, who was once a copywriter, said, 'It is easier to write ten passably effective sonnets than one effective advertisement.' You cannot bore people into buying your product. You can only interest them in buying it.

They are coming to rely too much on research, and they use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post, for support rather than for illumination.

Advertisements with long copy convey the impression that you have something important to say, whether people read the copy or not.

Never summon people to your office; it frightens them. Instead, go to see them in their offices, unannounced. A boss who never wanders about his agency becomes an invisible hermit. 3