David Ogilvy

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

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

A well-run restaurant is like a winning baseball team. It makes the most of every crew member’s talent and takes advantage of every split-second opportunity to speed up service.

Advertising is a business of words, but advertising agencies are infested with men and women who cannot write. They cannot write advertisements, and they cannot write plans. They are helpless as deaf mutes on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.

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

Political advertising ought to be stopped. It’s the only really dishonest kind of advertising that’s left. It’s totally dishonest.

As members of the Ford Motor organization we are engaged in the production of an article of use for the people of all countries. Our principle is to make our work as profitable for the buyer as for the seller.

What is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married?

A manufacturer is not through with his customer when a sale is completed. He has then only started with his customer. In the case of an automobile the sale of the machine is only something in the nature of an introduction. If the machine does not give service, then it is better for the manufacturer if he never had the introduction, for he will have the worst of all advertisements-a dissatisfied customer.

Efficient industry is the sole key to prosperity.

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.

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

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

I believe in benevolent dictatorship provided I am the dictator.

There’s no better friend to any merchant than a fair competitor.

Change is vital, improvement the logical form of change.

There is a time and place for all things to be successful. There is fate and destiny and opportunity, and you need all three things in line at the same time.

I wanted to be an editor or a journalist, I wasn’t really interested in being an entrepreneur, but I soon found I had to become an entrepreneur in order to keep my magazine going.

I was never involved in arms trading. In the Russian Federation, arms trading is the prerogative of the state.

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

This is a perverse thing, personally, but I would rather be in the cycle where people are underestimating us. It gives us latitude to go out and make big bets that excite and amaze people.