David Ogilvy Quotes

It's not rocket science: The best ads tell great stories. They look and feel like the content you're already consuming. They invite you in. They make you laugh. They teach you something. They also sell.

It has been found that the less an advertisement looks like an advertisement and the more it looks like an editorial, the more readers stop, look, and read.

The very first law in advertising is to avoid the concrete promise and cultivate the delightfully vague.

We try to entertain first, advertise second. When you find out that it's sponsored, we've already won you over. We try to make it obvious that the brand has made it better.

The first law in advertising is to avoid the concrete promise... and cultivate the delightfully vague.

Its definition can be a bit murky, but to me, native advertising is a sales pitch that fits right into the flow of the information being shown. It doesn't interrupt - native ads don't pop up or dance across the screen - and its content is actually valuable to the person viewing it.

Forget words like 'hard sell' and 'soft sell.' That will only confuse you. Just be sure your advertising is saying something with substance, something that will inform and serve the consumer, and be sure you're saying it like it's never been said before.

You must make the product interesting, not just make the ad different. And that's what too many of the copywriters in the U.S. today don't yet understand.

Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.

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

Just because your ad looks good is no insurance that it will get looked at. How many people do you know who are impeccably groomed... but dull?

Great designers seldom make great advertising men, because they get overcome by the beauty of the picture - and forget that merchandise must be sold.

Advertising must respect the intelligence of its audience and if it does not prompt them to think, it will be instantly dismissed.

I think daily deals are a good idea. Any ad people view as content is a good ad, and that's true for daily-deal ads too.

I think video advertising is a hugely compelling medium.

The great art in writing advertisements is the finding out of a proper method to catch the reader's eye; without which, a good thing may pass over unobserved, or lost among commissions of bankrupt.

I think we have to recognize as an industry that users have a lot more choices and can click away to a lot more media. As a result, the advertising we create really needs to be something users want to see.

A large social-media presence is important because it's one of the last ways to conduct cost-effective marketing. Everything else involves buying eyeballs and ears. Social media enables a small business to earn eyeballs and ears.

As long as the attitude is to only show the sheet metal, then automobile advertising will continue to be wretched.

Money is being wasted on adverts that go right over a consumer's head. They may win awards at Cannes, but they lose at the cash register.

In our quest to tweet, like, and trend, we have forgotten that brands can be built through advertising. Ads can generate big ideas that can never be trumped by tactics. That is the magic of an ad, and that is what is missing from many ads today.

Advertising has moved online, with the rise of the 'advergame.' These are compelling online games, often aimed at the under-15s, designed to promote a high-fat or high-sugar food or drink. Advergames are advertising disguised as entertainment. If they didn't work, the food and drink industry wouldn't be investing in them.

When you're writing for the Internet, you have the analytics, and you know that people are bailing every second. But various people kept reminding me that once people have bought a book, they're in. You don't have to be selling them on every page.

I love traditional advertising and have built my career on it. However, I think that is one option, not the only option. If some of it ends up in that space, fine, so long as it does so because it's relevant to the desired outcome.

If other members of the Hindi film fraternity are doing aggressive promotional campaigns, then I can do the same.