David Ogilvy

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.

The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.

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.

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

I always said that mega-mergers were for megalomaniacs.

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.

No serious-minded man should have time for the mediocre in any phase of his living.

Competition whose motive is merely to compete, to drive some other fellow out, never carries very far.

In Moscow I feel most comfortable. I’m used to four different seasons; it’s difficult for people in London to understand. People brought up in Russia like my kids want to play in the snow.

My mother was an entrepreneur… She found being on relief humiliating. She built this business from scratch… In 1951 my mother opened this store…

Any business arrangement that is not profitable to the other person will in the end prove unprofitable for you. The bargain that yields mutual satisfaction is the only one that is apt to be repeated.

I think everybody thought I was crazy that I quit my job and started a management company in which I was managing one client – Laura Nyro.

There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: make the best quality goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.

If you are not taking care of your customer, your competitor will.

No unemployment insurance can be compared to an alliance between a man and a plot of land. With one foot in the land, human society is firmly balanced against most economic uncertainties. With a job to supply him with cash, and a plot of land to guarantee him support, the individual is doubly secure. Stocks may fail, but seedtime and harvest do not fail.

The keystone of successful business is cooperation. Friction retards progress.

Profits made out of the distress of the people are always much smaller than profits made out of the most lavish service of the people at the lowest prices that competent management can make possible.

The well-satisfied customer will bring the repeat sale that counts.

Work is our sanity, our self-respect, our salvation. The day’s work is the center of everything.

If your dreams don’t scare you they are too small.

I have had the top people in the world into One Hyde Park, and they have seen everything and they say there is nothing quite like this.