David Ogilvy

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

It is flagrantly dishonest for an advertising agent to urge consumers to buy a product which he would not allow his own wife to buy.

I avoid clients for whom advertising is only a marginal factor in their marketing mix. They have an awkward tendency to raid their advertising appropriations whenever they need cash for other purposes.

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.

What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it.

On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.

I may be kindly, I am ordinarily gentle, but in my line of business I am obliged to will terribly what I will at all.

Our friendship was based on my payouts. That wasn’t a friendship when – as, for example, it’s me, my friends, we are friends for many years, and it doesn’t matter for me what the position is, where they work; we simply are friends. And with Mr. Berezovsky, our friendship was based on my payoffs.

From the start I had my own ideas about how the business should run. I wanted it to benefit everybody who contributed to its success-stockholders, labor and the American public.

Good publicity is preferable to bad, but from a bottom-line perspective, bad publicity is sometimes better than no publicity at all. Controversy, in short, sells.

My definition of an executive’s job is brief and to the point. It is simply this: Getting things done through other people.

We can serve our customers well only if our buying jobs are right. You cannot sell if you haven’t ordered wanted goods into your store.

Success will always be measured by the extent to which we serve the buying public.

It’s true we’ve got some fantastic clients. We’re very fortunate to be connected with the movers and shakers of all the global cities of the world. You can usually tell when we’ve got a client in here because their bodyguards are all over the place: two outside the front door, two in the lobby, one in the lift…

Without a customer, you don’t have a business, all you have is a hobby.

Competition is the keen cutting edge of business, always shaving away at costs.

If you find out what men want and give them that, you are pleasing them. If you find out what is good for them and give them that, you are performing a service. That’s what we are trying to do.

In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, product, and profits. Unless you’ve got a good team, you can’t do much with the other two.

Hire character. Train skill.

My philosophy is that if I have any money I invest it in new ventures and not have it sitting around.

I have no Napoleonic dream. I’m just hard working and pragmatic.