David Ogilvy

Much of the messy advertising you see on television today is the product of committees. Committees can criticize advertisements, but they should never be allowed to create them.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Theory is splendid but until put into practice, it is valueless.

I never aspired to be a public figure. I have always been interested primarily in real business and the development of business strategies.

The keystone of successful business is cooperation. Friction retards progress.

I never get the accountants in before I start up a business. It’s done on gut feeling, especially if I can see that they are taking the mickey out of the consumer.

See what a 25-cent raise will do to us, said Mr. Ford. So they figured the daily and monthly cost of a 25-cent increase. Put on another quarter and see what that will cost, he said. And so they went on, 25 cents a step. Finally the wage of $2.34 stood at $4.75–more than 100 percent increase. One of the associates–a good financial head–remarked rather sarcastically that if they were going to be fools, why not be first-class fools and make it $5. All right, said Mr. Ford, let’s make it $5.

Anything that is not right, whether it temporarily favors the employees or the employers, cannot last-because it is not right.

In the Ford Motor Company we emphasize service equally with sales.

Good publicity is preferable to bad, but from a bottom-line perspective, bad publicity is sometimes better than no publicity at all. Controversy, in short, sells.

Many people – and I think I am one of them – are more productive when they’ve had a little to drink. I find if I drink two or three brandies, I’m far better able to write.

For a long time now, I have believed that industry and agriculture are natural partners and that they should begin to recognize and practice their partnership. Each of them is suffering from ailments which the other can cure. Agriculture needs a wider andsteadier market; industrial workers need more steadier jobs. Can each be made to supply what the other needs? I think so. The link between is Chemistry. In the vicinity of Dearborn we are farming twenty thousand acres for everything from sunflowers to soy beans. We pass the crops through our laboratory to learn how they may be used in the manufacture of motor cars and, thus provide an industrial market for the farmers’ products.

No king on earth is as safe in his job as a Trade Union official. There is only one thing that can get him sacked; and that is drink. Not even that, as long as he doesn’t actually fall down.

My philosophy is that if I have any money I invest it in new ventures and not have it sitting around.

Well, I think that there’s a very thin dividing line between success and failure. And I think if you start a business without financial backing, you’re likely to go the wrong side of that dividing line.

Two classes of people lose money; those who are too weak to guard what they have; those who win money by trick. They both lose in the end.