David Ogilvy

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.

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 secret of long life is double careers. One to about age sixty, then another for the next thirty years.

There is no need for advertisements to look like advertisements. If you make them look like editorial pages, you will attract about 50 per cent more readers.

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

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

Investors have very short memories.

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

This is a perverse thing, personally, but I would rather be in the cycle where people are underestimating us. It gives us latitude to go out and make big bets that excite and amaze people.

While several parties have expressed interest in buying the company, I’m not shopping it, I haven’t sold it and I’m not about to sell it.

Nobody’s ever called me Sir Richard. Occasionally in America, I hear people saying Sir Richard and think there’s some Shakespearean play taking place. But nowhere else anyway.

I never made any public statements, at least I tried never to make any public statements. I know I don’t do it well, I become very nervous, I forget what it is that I mean to say, I can’t really convey my logic and my thought to the journalists, so I decided this is not my thing, I really shouldn’t be doing it.

I feel that the best companies are started not because the founder wanted a company but because the founder wanted to change the world… If you decide you want to found a company, you maybe start to develop your first idea. And hire lots of workers.

Our clients pay for value. London is the top city in the world, the best tax haven in the world for some and the top residential site in the city is One Hyde Park at the top end of Sloane Street.

Profits made out of the distress of the people are always much smaller than profits made out of the most lavish service of the people at the lowest prices that competent management can make possible.

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

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.

After the situation with Kursk submarine, I started looking at Mr. Berezovsky in a completely different way. For me, it was a turning point in our relationship. I think that he took a completely dishonorable position.

The other people I don’t take too seriously are the critics-except when they stand in the way of my projects. In my opinion, they mostly write to impress each other, and they’re just as swayed by fashions as anyone else. One week it’s spare glass towers they are praising to the skies. The next week, they’ve rediscovered old, and they’re celebrating detail and ornamentation.

Many people – and I think I am one of them – are more productive when they’ve had a little to drink. I find if I drink two or three brandies, I’m far better able to write.

I never trust an executive who tends to pass the buck. Nor would I want to deal with him as a customer or a supplier.