David Ogilvy

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.

The secret of long life is double careers. One to about age sixty, then another for the next thirty years.

It is flagrantly dishonest for an advertising agent to urge consumers to buy a product which he would not allow his own wife to buy.

Never write an advertisement which you wouldn’t want your own family to read. You wouldn’t tell lies to your own wife. Don’t tell them to mine. Do as you would be done by. If you tell lies about a product, you will be found out — either by the Government, which will prosecute you, or by the consumer, who will punish you by not buying your product a second time. Good products can be sold by honest advertising. If you don’t think the product is good, you have no business to be advertising it.

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.

Good copy can’t be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. You’ve got to believe in the product.

Some manufacturers illustrate their advertisements with abstract paintings. I would only do this if I wished to conceal from the reader what I was advertising.

There is no failure except failure to serve one’s purpose.

If the boss stands in the way of men getting what they earn, he is not fit to be boss.

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

Prune – prune businesses, products, activities, people. Do it annually.

Building a brand may be more important than building a business.

It is always the start that requires the greatest effort.

The relationship between a manufacturer and his advertising agency is almost as intimate as the relationship between a patient and his doctor. Make sure that you can life happily with your prospective client before you accept his account.

Investors have very short memories.

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

It strikes me as bad manners for a magazine to accept one of my advertisements and then attack it editorially – like inviting a man to dinner then spitting in his eye.

Efficient industry is the sole key to prosperity.

It was always my practice to train salespeople under my direct supervision, and to treat children with the utmost consideration.

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

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