David Ogilvy Quotes

There was a period of time in America where the advertising world actually went to the housewives of America and had them write jingles that would appeal to them. It was actually brilliant marketing.

Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.

Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.

Think of a pitch in terms of advertising: You're trying to hook a reader the way a commercial tries to hook a detergent user.

Advertising is, actually, a simple phenomenon in terms of economics. It is merely a substitute for a personal sales force - an extension, if you will, of the merchant who cries aloud his wares.

I showed what I can do with butter, right? Eighty-five percent increase in sales. I'm very proud of them Country Life ads. They were funny and clever and classy like the Toblerone ads I grew up with.

Advertisers also know that humor can help bond us to their product.

Everything is designed to help you sell out.

Advertising is salesmanship mass produced. No one would bother to use advertising if he could talk to all his prospects face-to-face. But he can't.

We are pushing hard to find quality advertising clients.

A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.

Nobody counts the number of ads you run; they just remember the impression you make.

Great designers seldom make great advertising men, because they get overcome by the beauty of the picture - and forget that merchandise must be sold.

Marketing is designed to bring people into something.

Advertising is the life of trade.

Commercials capture your attention, that's all.

If an ad campaign is built around a weak idea - or as is so often the case, no idea at all - I don't give a damn how good the execution is, it's going to fail.

Marketing is a contest for people's attention.

We have always said that advertising is just the icing on the cake. It is not the cake.

Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it.

I told the Mucinex people, 'You picked me because I always sound sick'. They were like, 'Well, it doesn't hurt'.

I understand the concept of advertising. It makes sense. Companies want to reach customers with information about their products. It's a completely legitimate and valuable notion.

It always ended up that they said, 'Tony, are Frosted Flakes good?' And he would laugh and say, 'Good? Why, they're great.' And I said, 'Well, we've gotta do something with the word 'great' to make It explode. It has to really knock the packages off the shelves.'

As a producer, you want your product to reach the maximum people. That has become a system, and to work on it has become a necessity.

Any brand in the world wants to make desirable product. But we don't shove it down people's throats.