David Ogilvy

Sourced

• "At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock." 1958
  • Source: Rolls-Royce print ad
  • Note: This is sometimes referred to as the most famous headline in advertising history.

• "... there are now unmistakeable signs of a trend in favor of superior products at premium prices. The consumer is not a moron, she is your wife."
  • Ogilvy on Advertising, p. 170

• "Always hold your sales meetings in rooms too small for the audience, even if it means holding them in the WC. 'Standing room only' creates an atmosphere of success, as in theatres and restaurants, while a half-empty auditorium smells of failure."
  • Ogilvy on Advertising, p. 172

• "Viewers have a way of remembering the celebrity while forgetting the product. I did not know this when I paid Eleanor Roosevelt $35,000 to make a commercial for margarine. She reported that her mail was equally divided. "One half was sad because I had damaged my reputation. The other half was happy because I had damaged my reputation." Not one of my proudest memories."
  • Ogilvy on Advertising, p. 109

• "When someone is made the head of an office in the Ogilvy & Mather chain, I send him a Matrioshka doll from Gorky. If he has the curiosity to open it, and keep opening it until he comes to the inside of the smallest doll, he finds this message: If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants."
  • Ogilvy on Advertising, p. 47

• "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."
  • Confessions of an Advertising Man, p. 87 (Ballantine Books)

Attributed

• "We all have a tendency to use research as a drunkard uses a lamppost -- for support, but not for illumination."
• "The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife. You insult her intelligence if you assume that a mere slogan and a few vapid adjectives will persuade her to buy anything. She wants all the information you can give her."

• "The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but it can be more satisfying."

• "Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon. "
  • Notes: The business in question is advertising, specifically copywriting.

• "Once upon a time I was riding on the top of a First Avenue bus, when I heard a mythical housewife say to another, "Molly, my dear, I would have bought that new brand of toilet soap if only they hadn't set the body copy in ten point Garamond." Don't you believe it. What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form."

• "H. L. Mencken once said that nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. That is not true. I have come to believe that it pays to make all your layouts project a feeling of good taste, provided that you do it unobtrusively. An ugly layout suggests an ugly product. There are very few products which do not benefit from being given a first class ticket through life."

• "It has been found that the less an advertisement looks like an advertisement, and the more it looks like an editorial, the more readers stop, look and read. Therefore, study the graphics used by editors and imitate them. Study the graphics used in advertisements, and avoid them."