DAVID OGILVY

Hire people who are better than you are, then leave them to get on with it. Look for people who will aim for the remarkable, who will not settle for the routine.

Does advertising corrupt editors? Yes it does, but fewer editors than you may suppose... the vast majority of editors are incorruptible.

In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.

If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.

Leaders grasp nettles.

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

The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but it can be more satisfying.

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.

I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment; 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.

Don't bunt. Aim out of the ball park. Aim for the company of immortals.

Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things.

The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife.

Develop your eccentricities while you are young. That way, when you get old, people won't think you're going gaga.

You now have to decide what 'image' you want for your brand. Image means personality. Products, like people, have personalities, and they can make or break them in the market place.

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.

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

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.

Many people - and I think I am one of them - are more productive when they've had a little to drink. I find if I drink two or three brandies, I'm far better able to write.

The headline is the 'ticket on the meat.' Use it to flag down readers who are prospects for the kind of product you are advertising.

Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving.

I did not feel 'evil' when I wrote advertisements for Puerto Rico. They helped attract industry and tourists to a country which had been living on the edge of starvation for 400 years.

Political advertising ought to be stopped. It's the only really dishonest kind of advertising that's left. It's totally dishonest.

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.

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.

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.