David Ogilvy

Many manufacturers secretly question whether advertising really sells their product, but are vaguely afraid that their competitors might steal a march on them if they stopped.

Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things.

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.

If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.

The consumer isn’t a moron. She is your wife.

I don’t know the rules of grammar. If you’re trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think. We try to write in the vernacular.

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.

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

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.

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

The consumer isn’t a moron. She is your wife.

When two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary.

Advertising is a business of words, but advertising agencies are infested with men and women who cannot write. They cannot write advertisements, and they cannot write plans. They are helpless as deaf mutes on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.

In business, cooperation is essential to success.

Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.

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

The art of effective listening is essential to clear communication, and clear communication is necessary to management success.

Efficient industry is the sole key to prosperity.

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.

If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have kept it all to themselves.

This is a perverse thing, personally, but I would rather be in the cycle where people are underestimating us. It gives us latitude to go out and make big bets that excite and amaze people.