David Ogilvy

I did not feel ‘evil’ when I wrote advertisements for Puerto Rico. They helped attract industry and tourists to a country which had been living on the edge of starvation for 400 years.

Advertising reflects the mores of society, but it does not influence them.

Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.

I always said that mega-mergers were for megalomaniacs.

If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.

Many people – and I think I am one of them – are more productive when they’ve had a little to drink. I find if I drink two or three brandies, I’m far better able to write.

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.

Nothing can be made except by makers, nothing can be managed except by managers. Money cannot make anything and money cannot manage anything.

No one should buy on reputation alone. They should come and see it and inspect it, feel it and touch it.

When prices go up, business goes down.

Without hustle, talent will only carry you so far.

We know everything about our clients – if they like their dressing gowns heated, what colour flowers they like, if their chef works left-handed – we know everything and we incorporate it into our work for them.

Although Mr. Edison was called ‘The Wizard’ of the electrical world and everyone thought that electricity was the coming thing, he actually encouraged me to go with my second car.

Cutting wages is not the way to recovery. Raise wages and improve the product.

If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have kept it all to themselves.

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

To be most effective in sales today, it’s imperative to drop your ‘sales’ mentality and start working with your prospects as if they’ve already hired you.

It strikes me as bad manners for a magazine to accept one of my advertisements and then attack it editorially – like inviting a man to dinner then spitting in his eye.

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.

I don’t make deals for the money. I’ve got enough, much more than I’ll ever need. I do it to do it.

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.