Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Treat advertising with the same honesty you would use with family.
In plain terms
Do not lie in ads any more than you would lie to your wife.
What can you take from it?
Maintain honesty in all advertising communications.

Where it applies

  • ad copy
  • brand messaging
  • customer relations

Putting it to work

  • review claims
  • avoid exaggeration
  • prioritize truth

Questions to consider

  • Would your family accept this message?
  • How do you define honesty in ads?

Another view

Sometimes marketing requires simplification that might border on omitting details.

More from David Ogilvy

  1. 'When someone is made the head of an office in the Ogilvy & Mather chain, I send him a Matrioshka doll from Gorky. If he has the curiosity to open it, and keep…

    Permalink to quote #5
  2. 'We all have a tendency to use research as a drunkard uses a lamppost -- for support, but not for illumination.'

    Permalink to quote #7
  3. 'Viewers have a way of remembering the celebrity while forgetting the product. I did not know this when I paid Eleanor Roosevelt $35,000 to make a commercial f…

    Permalink to quote #4

Related quotes

  1. You have to be honest with your kids about the world but also do your best to protect them. When I was a kid, we watched the Vietnam War on the six o'clock new…

    Johnny DeppJohnny Depp quote #104
  2. I will only make pictures that I won't be ashamed to have my children see.

    Louis B. MayerLouis B. Mayer quote #1
  3. It is terrible to destroy a person's picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction.

    Doris LessingDoris Lessing quote #1