David Ogilvy

I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment; they are coming to rely too much on research, and they use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post for support, rather than for illumination.

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

In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.

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

I have a theory that the best advertisements come from personal experience. Some of the good ones I have done have really come out of the real experience of my life, and somehow this has come over as true and valid and persuasive.

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

A big business never becomes big by being a narrow society looking after only the interests of its organization and stockholders.

If you love what you do, if you love going to the office, if you really like it – not just say it, but really like it – it keeps you young and energised. I really love what I do.

America is not a land of money but of wealth-not a land of rich people, but of successful workers.

The more predictable the business, the more valuable it is.

No business can succeed in any great degree without being properly organized.

If you change anything about the way you approach selling, the thing that would make the biggest difference would be your attitude, your attitude toward your customer, your service, the benefits of your products, your employer, and yourself.

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.

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.

No human wisdom or knowledge could ever be sufficient [for] the duty of superintending the industry of private people … towards the employment most suitable to the interest of the society.

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.

Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.

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

I’ve been making deals all my life.

In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, product, and profits. Unless you’ve got a good team, you can’t do much with the other two.

You don’t learn to walk by following rules, you learn by doing and by falling over.