David Ogilvy

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

Set exorbitant standards, and give your people hell when they don’t live up to them. There is nothing so demoralizing as a boss who tolerates second rate work.

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

Never write an advertisement which you wouldn’t want your family to read. You wouldn’t tell lies to your own wife. Don’t tell them to mine.

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.

There are very few men of genius in advertising agencies. But we need all we can find. Almost without exception they are disagreeable. Don’t destroy them. They lay golden eggs.

I decided to sit quietly and do business and don’t stick your neck out and tell everybody everything belongs to me. That would only cause problems for myself. Therefore I never told these stories or declared all these things to anyone.

What right have you, save service to the world, to think that other men’s labor should contribute to your gains?

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

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.

People in the beauty community don’t like copycats, so I think it’s important to stay true to who you are and people will stay your customer.

What is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married?

The real story of Facebook is just that we’ve worked so hard for all this time. I mean, the real story is actually probably pretty boring, right? I mean, we just sat at our computers for six years and coded.

The opportunity for an entrepreneur to start a company from scratch today is abysmal.

I think a simple rule of business is, if you do the things that are easier first, then you can actually make a lot of progress.

Paying good wages is not charity at all-it is the best kind of business.

In Moscow I feel most comfortable. I’m used to four different seasons; it’s difficult for people in London to understand. People brought up in Russia like my kids want to play in the snow.

Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget Rule No.1.

Work is our sanity, our self-respect, our salvation. The day’s work is the center of everything.

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.

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.