David Ogilvy
David Ogilvy
David Mackenzie Ogilvy CBEwas an advertising executive who was widely hailed as "The Father of Advertising". In 1962, Time called him "the most sought-after wizard in today's advertising industry". He founded Ogilvy & Mather...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth23 June 1911
clients should recommendations
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.
people decision buying
The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be. Before people making a buying decision, they have many questions. For example, why they should buy from you, why your product is better than other similar products, why they should trust you, and why they should buy it now, etc.
winning ideas fame
You will never win fame and fortune unless you invent big ideas.
memories half mail
Viewers have a way of remembering the celebrity while forgetting the product. I did not know this when I paid Eleanor Roosevelt $35,000 to make a commercial for margarine. She reported that her mail was equally divided. "One half was sad because I had damaged my reputation. The other half was happy because I had damaged my reputation." Not one of my proudest memories.
pride finals lines
The line between pride in our work and neurotic obstinacy is a narrow one. We make our recommendations clear. But we do not grudge our clients the right to the final say. It is their money.
important elements headlines
The headline is the most important element in most advertisements. It is the telegram which decides the reader whether to read the copy.
book tonight instinct
Supposing you've got an acute appendicitis. You've got to be operated on tonight. Would you like to have a surgeon who's read some books of anatomy and knows how to do that operation - or would you prefer to have a surgeon who refused to read all books about anatomy and relied on his own instinct?
good-man use isms
I always use my clients' products. This is not toady-ism, but elementary good manners.
opposites study method
Study the methods of your competitors and do the exact opposite.
summer vacation italian
I once found myself conspiring with a British Cabinet Minister as to how we might persuade Her Majesty's Treasury to cough up more money for the British Travel advertising in America. Said he, "Why does any American in his senses spend his vacation in the cold damp of an English summer when he could equally well bask under Italian skies? I can only suppose that your advertising is the answer." Damn right.
creativity mean agency
The general advertisers and their agencies know almost nothing for sure, because they cannot measure the results of their advertising. They worship at the altar of creativity, which really means 'originality': The most dangerous word in the lexicon of advertising
advertising apprenticeship should
Nobody should be allowed to create general advertising until he has served his apprenticeship in direct-response
running doors views
Candor compels me to admit that I have no conclusive research to support my view that jingles are less persuasive than the spoken word. You'd run like hell if a salesman came to your door and began singing at you. Why do it in advertising?
jobs fun agency
I have noticed that agencies which are full of fun and ferment seem to create the best advertising. If you are not happy in advertising, for goodness sake find a job in which you would be happy. For as far as I know, we pass this way only once