in Art we trust - David Ogilvy quotes: my Magna Carta of Advertisement

1. A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.
2. Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things.
3. Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.
4. Advertising reflects the mores of society, but it does not influence them.
5. Develop your eccentricities while you are young. That way, when you get old, people won't think you're going gaga.
6. Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image.
7. First, make yourself a reputation for being a creative genius. Second, surround yourself with partners who are better than you are. Third, leave them to go get on with it.
8. Good copy can't be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. You've got to believe in the product.
9. 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.
10. I have a theory that the best ads come from personal experience. Some of the good ones I have done have really come out of the real experience of my life, and somehow this has come over as true and valid and persuasive.
11. I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment; 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.
12. If each of us hires people smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs.
13. If it doesn't sell, it isn't creative.
14. In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.
15. 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.
16. Leaders grasp nettles.
17. Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving.
18. Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn't sell much of anything.
19. 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.
20. The advertisers who believe in the selling power of jingles have never had to sell anything.
21. The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.
22. The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife.
23. What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it.

David Ogilvy