Quotes by David Ogilvy

The consumer is not a moron she is your wife.

Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon.

In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.

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.

The consumer isnt a moron she is your wife.

If it doesnt sell, it isnt creative.

Never write an advertisement which you wouldnt want your family to read. You wouldnt tell lies to your own wife. Dont tell them to mine.

A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.

Good copy cant be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. Youve got to believe in the product.

The advertisers who believe in the selling power of jingles have never had to sell anything.

Leaders grasp nettles.

I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information.

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.

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

Remove advertising, disable a person or firm from proclaiming its wares and their merits, and the whole of society and of the economy is transformed. The enemies of advertising are the enemies of freedom.