The headline is the 'ticket on the meat.' Use it to flag down readers who are prospects for the kind of product you are advertising.
David OgilvyRead
The creative process requires more than reason. Most original thinking isn't even verbal. It requires 'a groping experimentation with ideas, governed by intuitive hunches and inspired by the unconscious.' The majority of business men are incapable of original thinking because they are unable to escape from the tyranny of reason. Their imaginations are blocked.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Creativity goes beyond rational thought and often involves intuitive and subconscious exploration of ideas.
David Ogilvy highlights that the process of creativity is not limited to logical reasoning; instead, it involves an exploration of ideas driven largely by intuition and the unconscious mind. He suggests that many business professionals struggle with original thought because they are overly reliant on rationality, which can stifle their imaginative potential and limit innovative thinking.
Themes
CreativityOriginal ThinkingIntuitionImaginationBusinessReason
In practice
Example use cases
A motivational speech to inspire creative teams to embrace intuition over mere logic.
More from David Ogilvy
All quotes →Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon.
David OgilvyRead
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.
David OgilvyRead
Much of the messy advertising you see on television today is the product of committees. Committees can criticize advertisements, but they should never be allowed to create them.
David OgilvyRead
The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.
David OgilvyRead
Experience has taught me that advertisers get the best results when they pay their agency a flat fee. It is unrealistic to expect your agency to be impartial when its vested interest lies wholly in the direction of increasing your commissionable advertising.
David OgilvyRead
Similar quotes
Never say no to an idea - you never know how that idea will ignite another idea.
Stanley KubrickRead
To create something you must be something.
Johann Wolfgang Von GoetheRead
I was young, and by instinct of self-preservation I had to collect my energy on something, if I were not to be whirled away with the dusk on the farm-roads, or the smoke on the plain. I begun in the evenings to write stories, fairy-tales, and romances, that would take my mind a long way off, to other countries and times.
Isak DinesenRead
Creativity means to push open the heavy, groaning doorway to life.
Daisaku IkedaRead
I guess my comfort zone as a writer is diametrically opposed to my comfort zone as a human being.
Jennifer EganRead
You need courage to be creative. You need the courage to see things differently, courage to go against the crowd, courage to take a different approach, courage to stand alone, if you have to, courage to choose activity over inactivity.
Jim RohnRead