David Ogilvy

Set exorbitant standards, and give your people hell when they don’t live up to them. There is nothing so demoralizing as a boss who tolerates second rate work.

Much of the messy advertising you see on television today is the product of committees. Committees can criticize advertisements, but they should never be allowed to create them.

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

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.

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.

Like a midwife, I make my living bringing new babies into the world, except that mine are new advertising campaigns.

It is always the start that requires the greatest effort.

Asking me to come work here is the dumbest idea you ever had. It has been a waste of a year.

A nation that knows how to work will never suffer.

It took only 10 minutes to do Chelsea deal with Roman Abramovich but I had to Google him first … I wasn’t sure if Jeremy Beadle was going to jump out.

Acquiring the habit of note-taking is therefore a wonderfully complementary skill to that of listening.

We started learning ourselves, understanding ourselves, reading, researching, going around the world and looking at what was defined as the very best.

No king on earth is as safe in his job as a Trade Union official. There is only one thing that can get him sacked; and that is drink. Not even that, as long as he doesn’t actually fall down.

When two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary.

No one loses anything by raising wages as soon as he is able. It has always paid us. Low wages are the most costly any employer can pay. It is like using low-grade material–the waste makes it very expensive in the end. There is no economy in cheap labor or cheap material. The hardest thing I ever had to do was to reduce wages. I think we were the last big company to come to it. Now I am mighty glad that wages are climbing again.

People in the beauty community don’t like copycats, so I think it’s important to stay true to who you are and people will stay your customer.

Money will ruin the life of any man who treats it like anything but a tool with which to work.

The final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves. but they can get very excited by those who do. That is why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest, the greatest and the most spectacular.

When bankers get into business they usually destroy it.

I remember flying in, driving down 101 in a cab, and passing by all these tech companies like Yahoo! I remember thinking, ‘Maybe someday we’ll build a company. This probably isn’t it, but one day we will.’

A world where men ran half our homes and women ran half our institutions would be just a much better world.