David Ogilvy

Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn’t sell much of anything.

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.

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

What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form.

The headline is the ‘ticket on the meat.’ Use it to flag down readers who are prospects for the kind of product you are advertising.

Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things.

There is no need for advertisements to look like advertisements. If you make them look like editorial pages, you will attract about 50 per cent more readers.

If I had asked them what they had wanted, they would have said a faster horse.

I’ve learned a tremendous amount from Oprah.

What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form.

One client didn’t want to go out so had us build him a nightclub in his house.

Hire character. Train skill.

I cannot remember a time when the Golden Rule was not my motto and precept, the torch that guided my footsteps.

The most important word in the vocabulary of advertising is TEST. If you pretest your product with consumers, and pretest your advertising, you will do well in the marketplace.

Success cannot come from standstill men. Methods change and men must change with them.

Sometimes your best investments are the ones you don’t make.

Every man must decide for himself whether he shall master his world or be mastered by it.

Edison, to a greater extent than has ever been recognized, is the father of American industrial methods.

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

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

It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night. I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea.