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
cute believe people
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
believe once-upon-a-time toilets
Once upon a time I was riding on the top of a First Avenue bus, when I heard a mythical housewife say to another, "Molly, my dear, I would have bought that new brand of toilet soap if only they hadn't set the body copy in ten point Garamond." Don't you believe it. What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form.
believe power jingles
The advertisers who believe in the selling power of jingles have never had to sell anything.
business believe marketing
Good copy can't be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. You've got to believe in the product.
believe class feelings
H. L. Mencken once said that nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. That is not true. I have come to believe that it pays to make all your layouts project a feeling of good taste, provided that you do it unobtrusively. An ugly layout suggests an ugly product. There are very few products which do not benefit from being given a first class ticket through life.
believe people community
The business community wants remarkable advertising, but turns a cold shoulder to the kind of people who can produce it. That is why most advertisements are so infernally dull.... our business needs massive transfusions of talent. And talent, I believe, is most likely to be found among nonconformists, dissenters, and rebels.
believe rebel talent
Talent, I believe, is most likely to be found among nonconformists, dissenters, and rebels.
buy people persuade rules seems trying
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.
among charge ferment president sure vice
Make sure you have a Vice President in charge of Revolution, to engender ferment among your more conventional colleagues.
business needs looks
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.
enemy merit disability
Remove advertising, disable a person or firm from proclaiming its wares and their merits, and the whole of society and of the economy is transformed. The enemies of advertising are the enemies of freedom.
men thinking ideas
The creative process requires more than reason. Most original thinking isn't even verbal. It requires 'a groping experimentation with ideas, governed by intuitive hunches and inspired by the unconscious.' The majority of business men are incapable of original thinking because they are unable to escape from the tyranny of reason. Their imaginations are blocked.
might advertising march
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.
abstract-painting advertising reader
Some manufacturers illustrate their advertisements with abstract paintings. I would only do this if I wished to conceal from the reader what I was advertising.