David Ogilvy

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. ↗

— David Ogilvy

#consumers #important #marketplace #most #product

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

— David Ogilvy

#excellence #less #more #profitable #pursuit

There are very few men of genius in advertising agencies. But we need all we can find. Almost without exception they are disagreeable. Don't destroy them. They lay golden eggs. ↗

— David Ogilvy

#advertising agencies #agencies #almost #destroy #disagreeable

Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals. ↗

— David Ogilvy

#dangerous #enemy #generals #ignore #people

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

— David Ogilvy

#believe #cheek #copy #got #just

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

— David Ogilvy

#business #create #creative #modern #modern world

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. ↗

— David Ogilvy

#agent #allow #buy #consumers #dishonest

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. ↗

— David Ogilvy

#attack #bad #bad manners #dinner #eye

Like a midwife, I make my living bringing new babies into the world, except that mine are new advertising campaigns. ↗

— David Ogilvy

#babies #bringing #campaigns #except #i

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. ↗

— David Ogilvy

#afraid #competitors #manufacturers #many #march