David Ogilvy

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

Hire people who are better than you are, then leave them to get on with it. Look for people who will aim for the remarkable, who will not settle for the routine.

You now have to decide what ‘image’ you want for your brand. Image means personality. Products, like people, have personalities, and they can make or break them in the market place.

I avoid clients for whom advertising is only a marginal factor in their marketing mix. They have an awkward tendency to raid their advertising appropriations whenever they need cash for other purposes.

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.

First, make yourself a reputation for being a creative genius. Second, surround yourself with partners who are better than you are. Third, leave them to go get on with it.

We’’ve designed swimming pools that turn into ballrooms, and fitted security devices that fill a garage with gas if someone is stealing your car.

I do not believe a man can ever leave his business. He ought to think of it by day and dream of it by night.

Mark my word: A combination airplane and motor car is coming.

The greatest teacher I know is the job itself.

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

It’s not just about being better. It’s about being different. You need to give people a reason to choose your business.

Reduce the layers of management. They put distance between the top of an organization and the customers.

No company can afford not to move forward. It may be at the top of the heap today but at the bottom of the heap tomorrow, if it doesn’t.

Always be smarter than the people who hire you.

The way I run my business seems to be easier than the way I run my life.

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.

A market is never saturated with a good product, but it is very quickly saturated with a bad one.

The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.

I never went to business school. I was just bumbling through a lot of my life. I was like the guy behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz.

A touch of the jitters sharpens the mind, gets the adrenaline flowing and helps you to focus.