David Ogilvy

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.

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, the language they use every day, the language in which they think. We try to write in the vernacular.

Some manufacturers illustrate their advertisements with abstract paintings. I would only do this if I wished to conceal from the reader what I was advertising.

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

Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image.

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

We were all young and we were all inventing our careers. I was very close to Jackson, just as I’d been very close to Laura Nyro. With each person I had a unique relationship.

They encouraged me to always look for the good in people instead of assuming the worst and trying to find fault.

I believe that any stock that is sold should have real value as automobile or bushel of potatoes, and stock market should be run as a vegetable market.

No king on earth is as safe in his job as a Trade Union official. There is only one thing that can get him sacked; and that is drink. Not even that, as long as he doesn’t actually fall down.

My dream was to have a steady job, was not to be on the road, to exist like a guy that goes to work as a mechanic or a carpenter and knows he’s gonna have a job.

Listen – it makes you sound smarter.

What is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married?

Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things.

In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, product, and profits. Unless you’ve got a good team, you can’t do much with the other two.

Selling is our No. 1 job. Never get away from selling a lot of merchandise personally. The more you sell the more you learn.

The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.

Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image.

I don’t make deals for the money. I’ve got enough, much more than I’ll ever need. I do it to do it.

Hire people who are better than you are, then leave them to get on with it. Look for people who will aim for the remarkable, who will not settle for the routine.

A big business never becomes big by being a narrow society looking after only the interests of its organization and stockholders.