David Ogilvy

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.

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.

The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be.

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

Does advertising corrupt editors? Yes it does, but fewer editors than you may suppose… the vast majority of editors are incorruptible.

Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn’t sell much of anything.

Test ideas in the marketplace. You learn from hearing a range of perspectives. Consultation helps engender the support decisions need to be successfully implemented.

Nothing can be made except by makers, nothing can be managed except by managers. Money cannot make anything and money cannot manage anything.

For a long time now, I have believed that industry and agriculture are natural partners and that they should begin to recognize and practice their partnership. Each of them is suffering from ailments which the other can cure. Agriculture needs a wider andsteadier market; industrial workers need more steadier jobs. Can each be made to supply what the other needs? I think so. The link between is Chemistry. In the vicinity of Dearborn we are farming twenty thousand acres for everything from sunflowers to soy beans. We pass the crops through our laboratory to learn how they may be used in the manufacture of motor cars and, thus provide an industrial market for the farmers’ products.

Theory is splendid but until put into practice, it is valueless.

Behind every successful man stands a surprised mother-in-law.

Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.

If you ever have the good fortune to create a great advertising campaign, you will soon see another agency steal it. This is irritating, but don’t let it worry you; nobody has ever built a brand by imitating somebody else’s advertising.

Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving.

Do not primarily train men to work. Train them to serve willingly and intelligently.

If you think your boss is stupid, remember: you wouldn’t have a job if he was any smarter.

If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have kept it all to themselves.

The final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves. but they can get very excited by those who do. That is why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest, the greatest and the most spectacular.

The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.

I do not believe in excuses. I believe in hard work as the prime solvent of life’s problems.

Sales are contingent upon the attitude of the salesman, not the attitude of the prospect.