Ogilvy On Advertising Quotes

The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.

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.

Where people aren’t having any fun, they seldom produce good work.

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.

What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it.

On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.

The most effective leader is the one who satisfies the psychological needs of his followers.

The creative process requires more than reason. Most original thinking isn't even verbal. It requires 'a groping experimentation with ideas, governed by intuitive hunches and inspired by the unconscious.' The majority of business men are incapable of original thinking because they are unable to escape from the tyranny of reason. Their imaginations are blocked.

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.

I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information. When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative.’ I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product.

Tell your prospective client what your weak points are, before he notices them. This will make you more credible when you boast about your strong points.

The headlines which work best are those which promise the reader a benefit

It isn’t the whiskey they choose, it’s the image.

Some copywriters write tricky headlines – double meanings, puns and other obscurities. This is counter-productive. In the average newspaper your headline has to compete with 350 others. Readers travel fast through this jungle. Your headline should telegraph what you want to say.

Only amateurs use short copy.

Sound an alarm! Advertising, not deals, builds brands.

As a private person, I have a passion for landscape, and I have never seen one improved by a billboard. Where every prospect pleases, man is at his vilest when he erects a billboard. When I retire from Madison Avenue, I am going to start a secret society of masked vigilantes who will travel around the world on silent motor bicycles, chopping down posters at the dark of the moon. How many juries will convict us when we are caught in these acts of beneficent citizenship?

Big ideas come from the unconscious. This is true in art, in science and in advertising. But your unconscious has to be well informed, or your idea will be irrelevant. Stuff your conscious mind with information, then unhook your rational thought process.

On average, helpful information is read by 75 per cent more people than copy which deals only with the product. This ad told how Rinso gets out stains. It was read and remembered

Consumers still buy products whose advertising promises them value for money, beauty, nutrition, relief from suffering, social status and so on.

In my experience, committees can criticize, but they cannot create. ‘Search the parks in all your cities You’ll find no statues of committees.

Said Winston Churchill, ‘PERFECTIONISM is spelled PARALYSIS.

Never allow two people to do a job which one could do. George Washington observed, ‘Whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty by close application thereto, it is worse executed by two persons, and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein.

Concentrate your time, your brains, and your advertising money on your successes. Back your winners, and abandon your losers.

The hallmarks of a potentially successful copywriter include: Obsessive curiosity about products, people and advertising. A sense of humor. A habit of hard work. The ability to write interesting prose for printed media, and natural dialogue for television. The ability to think visually. Television commercials depend more on pictures than words. The ambition to write better campaigns than anyone has ever written before.

Any fool can write a bad advertisement, but it takes a genius to keep his hands off a good one.

Stuff your conscious mind with information, then unhook your rational thought process. You can help this process by going for a long walk, or taking a hot bath, or drinking half a pint of claret.

Whenever you can, make the product itself the hero of your advertising. If you think the product too dull, I have news for you: there are no dull products, only dull writers.

It will help you recognize a big idea if you ask yourself five questions: 1 Did it make me gasp when I first saw it? 2 Do I wish I had thought of it myself? 3 Is it unique? 4 Does it fit the strategy to perfection? 5 Could it be used for 30 years? You

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

committees can criticize, but they cannot create.

Truth Tell the truth, but make the truth fascinating.

Most campaigns are too complicated. They reflect a long list of objectives, and try to reconcile the divergent views of too many executives. By attempting to cover too many things, they achieve nothing. Many

I used to start my questionnaires by asking, ‘Which would you rather hear on the radio tonight – Jack Benny or a Shakespeare play?’ If the respondent said Shakespeare, I knew he was a liar and broke off the interview.

First, study the product you are going to advertise. The more you know about it, the more likely you are to come up with a big idea for selling it.

Most good copywriters’, says William Maynard of the Bates agency, ‘fall into two categories. Poets. And killers.

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.

Never summon people to your office; it frightens them. Instead, go to see them in their offices, unannounced. A boss who never wanders about his agency becomes an invisible hermit. 3

The day after a new business presentation, send the prospect a three-page letter summarizing the reasons why he should pick your agency. This will help him make the right decision. If

As a private person, I have a passion for landscape, and I have never seen one improved by a billboard. Where every prospect pleases, man is at his vilest when he erects a billboard. When I retire from Madison Avenue, I am going to start a secret society of masked vigilantes who will travel around the world on silent motor bicycles, chopping down posters at the dark of the moon. How many juries will convict us when we are caught in these acts of beneficent citizenship? —David Ogilvy, founder of the Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency, in Confessions of an Advertising Man, 1963

The easiest way to get new clients is to do good advertising. During one period of seven years, we never failed to win an account for which we competed, and all I did was to show the campaigns we had created.

When copywriters argue with me about some esoteric word they want to use, I say to them, ‘Get on a bus. Go to Iowa. Stay on a farm for a week and talk to the farmer. Come back to New York by train and talk to your fellow passengers in the day-coach. If you still want to use the word, go ahead.

Aldous Huxley, who was once a copywriter, said, ‘It is easier to write ten passably effective sonnets than one effective advertisement.’ You cannot bore people into buying your product. You can only interest them in buying it.

Hard work, says the Scottish proverb, never killed a man. People die of boredom and disease. There is nothing like an occasional all-night push to enliven morale – provided you are part of the push. Never leave the bridge in a storm.

It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night. I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea.

Be happy while you’re living, for you’re a long time dead,

Hard work, says the Scottish proverb, never killed a man.

advertisements with long copy convey the impression that you have something important to say, whether people read the copy or not.

Remember the French saying: ‘He who is absent is always wrong.

When you reach for the stars, you may not quite get one, but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.’ Pursuit

Long copy sells more than short copy, particularly when you are asking the reader to spend a lot of money.

Search all he parks in all your cities; you'll find no statues of committees.

Pay peanuts and you get monkeys.

I like to succeed in public, but to fail in secret.

I was infinitely more useful to my clients when I wrote copy than when I was Chairman of the Board.

When people read your copy, they are alone. Pretend you are writing each of them a letter on behalf of your client. One human being to another, second person singular.

A psychologist flashed hundreds of words on a screen and used an electric gadget to measure emotional reactions. High marks went to darling. So I used it in a headline for Dove.

The best leaders are apt to be found among those executives who have a strong component of unorthodoxy in their characters. Instead of resisting innovation, they symbolize it – and companies cannot grow without innovation. Great leaders almost always exude self-confidence.

It is a good idea to start the year by writing down exactly what you want to accomplish, and end the year by measuring how much you have accomplished. McKinsey imposes this discipline on its partners and pays them according to how many of the things on their lists they accomplish. Leadership

It pays to give most products an image of quality – a First Class ticket. This is particularly true of products whose brand-name is visible to your friends, like beer, cigarettes and automobiles: products you ‘wear.’ If

Down with committees Most campaigns are too complicated. They reflect a long list of objectives, and try to reconcile the divergent views of too many executives. By attempting to cover too many things, they achieve nothing. Many commercials and many advertisements look like the minutes of a committee. In my experience, committees can criticize, but they cannot create. ‘Search the parks in all your cities You’ll find no statues of committees’ Agencies

Set yourself to becoming the best-informed person in the agency on the account to which you are assigned. If, for example, it is a gasoline account, read books on oil geology and the production of petroleum products. Read the trade journals in the field. Spend Saturday mornings in service stations, talking to motorists. Visit your client’s refineries and research laboratories. At the end of your first year, you will know more about the oil business than your boss, and be ready to succeed him. Most

One day a man walked into a London agency and asked to see the boss. He had bought a country house and was about to open it as a hotel. Could the agency help him to get customers? He had $500 to spend. Not surprisingly, the head of the agency turned him over to the office boy, who happened to be the author of this book. I invested his money in penny postcards and mailed them to well-heeled people living in the neighborhood. Six weeks later the hotel opened to a full house. I had tasted blood.

Tell your prospective client what your weak points are, before he notices them. This will make you more credible when you boast about your strong points. Don

All my experience says that for a great many products, long copy sells more than short.

Rosser Reeves: ‘Do you want fine writing? Do you want masterpieces? Or do you want to see the goddamned sales curve start moving up?

If you choose to ignore these factors, good luck to you. A blind pig can sometimes find truffles, but it helps to know that they are found in oak forests.

Everyone wants power; let them have it. Your goal is not power. Your goal is the illusion of surrendering power.

Sales are a function of product-value and advertising. Promotions cannot produce more than a temporary kink in the sales curve.

Given sufficient training, any intelligent person can learn to conduct surveys, but getting people to use the results requires salesmanship of a high order.

Promise, large promise is the soul of an advertisement,’ said Samuel Johnson.

Whatever you do, for goodness sake, don’t change the name of your corporation to initials.

Almost any question can be answered, cheaply, quickly and finally, by a test campaign. And that’s the way to answer them – not by arguments around the table.

Search the parks in all your cities You’ll find no statues of committees

The best way to settle such arguments is to measure the selling effectiveness of your campaign at regular intervals, and to go on running it until the research shows that it has worn out. Word

It is usually assumed that marketers use scientific methods to determine the price of their products. Nothing could be further from the truth. In almost every case, the process of decision is one of guesswork.

Do you think it childish to use a set of written principles to guide the management of an advertising agency? I can only tell you that mine have proved invaluable in keeping a complicated enterprise on course. Profit

I asked an indifferent copywriter what books he had read about advertising. He told me that he had not read any; he preferred to rely on his own intuition. ‘Suppose,’ I asked, ‘your gall-bladder has to be removed this evening. Will you choose a surgeon who has read some books on anatomy and knows where to find your gall-bladder, or a surgeon who relies on his intuition? Why should our clients be expected to bet millions of dollars on your intuition?

I saw the head chef at the Hotel Majestic fire a pastry cook because the poor devil could not get his brioches to rise straight. This ruthlessness made all the other chefs feel that they were working in the best kitchen in the world.

However able they may be, ambitious people won’t stay in outfits which practice nepotism. This is one mistake I did not make; my son is in the real estate business, secure in the knowledge that he owes nothing of his success to his father. Think

Agencies add new services the way universities add new courses. Nothing wrong with that if you also discontinue services which have outlived their relevance. To keep your boat moving through the water, keep scraping the barnacles off its bottom. Seven

At the same time President Kennedy invited me - and all the other millions of Europe - to try the novelty of tourism in the U.S., he issued a secret directive to 180,000,000 Americans to be nice to us. How else to explain the embarrassing generosity, the overwhelming kindness, the extreme courtesy at every turn?

In my Confessions, I told how I started by making a list of the clients I most wanted – General Foods, Lever Brothers, Bristol Myers, Campbell Soup Company and Shell. It took time, but in due course I got them all, plus American Express, Sears Roebuck, IBM, Morgan Guaranty, Merrill Lynch and a few others, including

When you are appointed to head an office in the Ogilvy & Mather chain, I send you one of these Russian dolls. Inside the smallest you will find 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, Ogilvy & Mather will become a company of giants.’ With

Many security analysts still believe that agencies are a poor investment. Not so Warren Buffett, one of the most successful investors in the world. He has taken substantial positions in three publicly held agencies, and is quoted as saying, ‘The best business is a royalty on the growth of others, requiring very little capital itself … such as the top international advertising agencies.’ If

St Augustine had this to say about pressure: ‘To be under pressure is inescapable. Pressure takes place through all the world: war, siege, the worries of state. We all know men who grumble under these pressures, and complain. They are cowards. They lack splendor. But there is another sort of man who is under the same pressure, but does not complain. For it is the friction which polishes him. It is pressure which refines and makes him noble.

Big ideas come from the unconscious. This is true in art, in science and in advertising. But your unconscious has to be well informed, or your idea will be irrelevant. Stuff your conscious mind with information, then unhook your rational thought process. You can help this process by going for a long walk, or taking a hot bath, or drinking half a pint of claret. Suddenly, if the telephone line from your unconscious is open, a big idea wells up within you.

The most effective leader is the one who satisfies the psychological needs of his followers. For example, it is one thing to be a good leader of Americans, who are raised in a tradition of democracy and have a high need for independence. But the American brand of democratic leadership doesn’t work so well in Europe, where executives have a psychological need for more autocratic leadership. That is one of many reasons why it is wise for American agencies to appoint locals to lead their foreign subsidiaries.

The mythical ‘butterfly effect’ does exist, but we don’t spend enough time butterfly hunting. Here are some recent butterfly effect discoveries, from my own experience: A website adds a single extra option to its checkout procedure – and increases sales by $300m per year. An airline changes the way in which flights are presented – and sells £8m more of premium seating per year. A software company makes a seemingly inconsequential change to call-centre procedure – and retains business worth several million pounds. A publisher adds four trivial words to a call-centre script – and doubles the rate of conversion to sales. A fast-food outlet increases sales of a product by putting the price . . . up. All these disproportionate successes were, to an economist, entirely illogical. All of them worked. And all of them, apart from the first, were produced by a division of my advertising agency, Ogilvy, which I founded to look for counter-intuitive solutions to problems. We discovered that problems almost always have a plethora of seemingly irrational solutions waiting to be discovered, but that nobody is looking for them; everyone is too preoccupied with logic to look anywhere else. We also found, rather annoyingly, that the success of this approach did not always guarantee repeat business; it is difficult for a company, or indeed a government, to request a budget for the pursuit of such magical solutions, because a business case has to look logical.

1. First, we admire people who work hard. We dislike passengers who don’t pull their weight in the boat. 2. We admire people with first-class brains, because you cannot run a great advertising agency without brainy people. 3. We admire people who avoid politics – office politics, I mean. 4. We despise toadies who suck up to their bosses; they are generally the same people who bully their subordinates. 5. We admire the great professionals, the craftsmen who do their jobs with superlative excellence. We notice that these people always respect the professional expertise of their colleagues in other departments. 6. We admire people who hire subordinates who are good enough to succeed them. We pity people who are so insecure that they feel compelled to hire inferior specimens as their subordinates. 7. We admire people who build up and develop their subordinates, because this is the only way we can promote from within the ranks. We detest having to go outside to fill important jobs, and I look forward to the day when that will never be necessary. 8. We admire people who practice delegation. The more you delegate, the more responsibility will be loaded upon you. 9. We admire kindly people with gentle manners who treat other people as human beings – particularly the people who sell things to us. We abhor quarrelsome people. We abhor people who wage paper warfare. We abhor buck passers, and people who don’t tell the truth. 10. We admire well-organized people who keep their offices shipshape, and deliver their work on time. 11. We admire people who are good citizens in their communities – people who work for their local hospitals, their church, the PTA, the Community Chest and so on.

1.​கல் மேல் நடந்த காலம் – சு. தியோடர் பாஸ்கரன் 2.​அக்னிச் சிறகுகள் – அப்துல் கலாம் 3.​தென்னாப்பிரிக்காவில் காந்தி 4.​Rich Dad Poor Dad – Robert Kiyosaki 5.​The Art of War - Sunzi 6.​Steal Like an Artist - Austin Kleon 7.​என் இளமைக்கால நினைவுகள் - ஓஷோ 8.​புதுமைப்பித்தன் சிறுகதைகள் 9.​ஜெயகாந்தன் சிறுகதைகள் 10.​அசோகமித்திரன் சிறுகதைகள் 11.​ஓலைப்பட்டாசு சிறுகதைத் தொகுதி, கற்றதும் பெற்றதும் – சுஜாதா 12.​புயலிலே ஒரு தோணி, கடலுக்கு அப்பால் – ப. சிங்காரம் நாவல்கள் 13.​Ogilvy David Advertising Books 14.​இன்றைய காந்தி, சங்கச் சித்திரங்கள், இந்து ஞான மரபில் ஆறு தரிசனங்கள், அறம் சிறுகதைத் தொகுப்பு – ஜெயமோகன் 15.​திருடன் மணியன்பிள்ளை - ஜி. ஆர். இந்துகோபன் 16.​சு. தியோடர் பாஸ்கரனின் சூழியல் நூல்கள் 17.​அன்னா கரினீனா, போரும் வாழ்வும் – லியோ டால்ஸ்டாய் 18.​குற்றமும் தண்டனையும், அசடன் – பியோதர் தஸ்தாயெவ்ஸ்கி 19.​The Magic Mountain – Thomas Mann 20.​ரேமண்ட் கார்வர் கதைகள் 21.​ஆண்டன் செகாவ் கதைகள் 22.​என் சரித்திரம் – உ. வே. சாமிநாதய்யர் 23.​The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Stephen R. Covey 24.​Nudge – Richard Thaler 25.​மூதாதையரைத் தேடி - சு.கி.ஜெயகரன் 26.​இந்திய வரலாறு: காந்திக்குப் பிறகு – ராமச்சந்திர குஹா 27.​எமதுள்ளம் சுடர் விடுக – பிரபஞ்சன் 28.​தேசாந்திரி – எஸ். ராமகிருஷ்ணன் 29.​ஆழமான கேள்விகள் அறிவார்ந்த பதில்கள் – ஸ்டீபன் ஹாக்கிங் 30.​உருவாகி வரும் உள்ளம் - விளையனூர் எஸ். ராமச்சந்திரன் 31.​சேப்பியன்ஸ் - யுவால் நோவா ஹராரி 32.​ஹோமோடியஸ் - யுவால் நோவா ஹராரி 33.​கோபல்ல கிராமம் – கி. ராஜநாராயணன் 34.​அ. முத்துலிங்கம் சிறுகதைகள் & வியத்தலும் இலமே 35.​சோஃபியின் உலகம் - யொஸ்டைன் கார்டேர் 36.​வந்தார்கள் வென்றார்கள் – மதன் 37.​குருதிப்புனல் – இந்திரா பார்த்தசாரதி 38.​இந்தியப் பயணங்கள் – ஏ. கே. செட்டியார் 39.​காலை எழுந்தவுடன் தவளை – பிரையன் டிரேசி 40.​சுதந்திரத்தின் நிறம் – லாரா கோப்பா 41.​கொங்குதேர் வாழ்க்கை – 2 (நவீன தமிழ்க் கவிதைகளின் தொகுப்பு) 42.​மோக முள் – தி.ஜானகிராமன் 43.​பொன்னியின் செல்வன் – கல்கி 44.​எட்டுத் திக்கும் மதயானை, கம்பனின் அம்பறாத்தூணி – நாஞ்சில்நாடன் 45.​புளியமரத்தின் கதை – சுந்தர ராமசாமி 46.​சிலப்பதிகாரம் 47.​காவல் கோட்டம் – சு. வெங்கடேசன் 48.​வேலையைக் காதலி – ஆர். கார்த்திகேயன் 49.​அப்பம் வடை தயிர் சாதம் – பாலகுமாரன் 50.​யேசு கதைகள் – பால் ஸக்காரியா நீங்கள் வாசிப்பிலும் வாழ்க்கையிலும் உயர என் நெஞ்சார்ந்த வாழ்த்துக்கள்! [1] நூல்: புன்னகைக்கும் பிரபஞ்சம். மொழிபெயர்ப்பு: செங்கதிர்

Take whiskey. Why do some people chose Jack Daniel’s, while others choose Grand Dad or Taylor? Have they tried all three and compared the taste? Don’t make me laugh. The reality is that these three brands have different images which appeal to different kinds of people. It isn’t the whiskey they choose, it’s the image. The brand image is 90 per cent of what the distiller has to sell. Researchers

When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative.’ I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product.

It follows that your advertising should consistently project the same image, year after year. This is difficult to achieve, because there are always forces at work to change the advertising

You can do homework from now until doomsday, but you will never win fame and fortune unless you also invent big ideas.

Research shows that the readership of an advertisement does not decline when it is run several times in the same magazine. Readership remains at the same level throughout at least four repetitions.

Most campaigns are too complicated. They reflect a long list of objectives, and try to reconcile the divergent views of too many executives.

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. Even

Look for young men and women who can one day lead your agency. Is there any way of predicting the capacity to lead? The only way I know is to look at their college records. If they were leaders between the ages of 18 and 22, the odds are that they will emerge as leaders in middle life. Make