QuoteProject
Great marketing only makes a bad product fail faster.
David Ogilvy
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Effective marketing cannot compensate for a poor product; it merely accelerates its failure.

David Ogilvy's quote emphasizes the crucial relationship between product quality and marketing effectiveness. It suggests that even the most brilliant marketing strategies will not save a subpar product in the long run; instead, they will lead to its quick downfall. Therefore, businesses must prioritize creating high-quality products to achieve lasting success, as good marketing can enhance success, but it cannot salvage a fundamentally flawed offering.

Themes

MarketingProduct QualityBusiness StrategyFailureCustomer

In practice

Example use cases

In a business seminar, one could say, 'Remember, great marketing only makes a bad product fail faster.'

More from David Ogilvy

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
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

Advertising doesn't create a product advantage. It can only convey it.
William BernbachRead
Content marketing is the only marketing left
Seth GodinRead
If your stories are all about your products and services, that's not storytelling. It's a brochure. Give yourself permission to make the story bigger.
Jay BaerRead
If you're a marketer who doesn't know how to invent, design, influence, adapt, and ultimately discard products, then you're no longer a marketer. You're deadwood.
Seth GodinRead
When marketers influence habits, they influence peoples' self-identity. And so when a group or company does something that doesn't correspond to our core values, it feels like a betrayal.
Charles DuhiggRead
A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is - it is what consumers tell each other it is.
Scott D. CookRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.