Ogilvy on Advertising

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Says James Webb Young, one of the best copywriters in history, ‘Every type of advertiser has the same problem: to be believed. The mail-order man knows nothing so potent for this purpose as the testimonial, yet the general advertiser seldom uses it.’

At the start of your career in advertising, what you learn is more important than what you earn.

Copy should be written in the language people use in everyday conversation,

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.

Agencies are psychological hothouses. You will never be bored.

Very few advertisements are read by more than one reader in 20. I conclude that editors communicate better than admen.

BRAND IMAGE You now have to decide what ‘image’ you want for your brand. Image means personality. Products, like people, have personalities, and they can make or break them in the market place. The personality of a product is an amalgam of many things – its name, its packaging, its price, the style of its advertising, and, above all, the nature of

Big ideas come from the unconscious. This is true in art, in science and in advertising.