David Ogilvy

I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information.

Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image.

The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be.

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

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

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

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.

If you need a machine and don’t buy it, then you will ultimately find that you have paid for it and don’t have it.

In business, cooperation is essential to success.

Men are not great or small because of their material possessions. They are great or small because of what they are.

A store’s best advertisement is the service its goods render, for upon such service rest the future, the good-will, of an organization.

I get my design inspiration from Christian Dior and Chanel.

There are very few men of genius in advertising agencies. But we need all we can find. Almost without exception they are disagreeable. Don’t destroy them. They lay golden eggs.

Growth is never by mere chance; it is the result of forces working together.

When people are ‘stung’ in false investment schemes there are three causes; greed of something for nothing; sheer inability to know their mind; or infantile trustfulness.

It was always my practice to train salespeople under my direct supervision, and to treat children with the utmost consideration.

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

I never insisted that I was a good student.

A market is never saturated with a good product, but it is very quickly saturated with a bad one.

I suspect that many corporations have begun to understand that they have an important role to play in the lives of their communities, and that allocating funds to support local groups helps them discharge that function and also burnish their image.

A merchant who approaches business with the idea of serving the public well has nothing to fear from the competition.