Art & Creativity Quote by David Ogilvy

Ogilvy is doing something sly here: he’s stripping advertising of its glamour in order to make it more powerful. By insisting it’s not “entertainment” or “an art form,” he’s rejecting the romantic self-image of the ad man as a creative genius. The line is almost puritanical, a raised eyebrow aimed at agencies that want applause more than results. In Ogilvy’s world, the audience isn’t a jury at Cannes; it’s a busy person trying to decide what to buy.

The word “medium” matters. It frames advertising as infrastructure, like a newspaper or a radio signal: a channel built to carry a payload. That payload is “information,” a term that sounds neutral, civic-minded, even slightly scientific. Subtext: persuasion works best when it doesn’t look like persuasion. If ads are informational, they can claim the legitimacy of fact rather than the manipulation of spectacle. It’s a strategic rebrand of motive.

Context fills in the edge. Ogilvy helped define modern mass-market advertising in the mid-20th century, when television and glossy print were turning commerce into national theater. His famous campaigns were often witty and stylish, but the style had a job to do: sell, repeatably, at scale. The quote reads like a corrective inside an industry prone to confusing attention with effectiveness. It’s also a quiet warning: if you chase art, you’ll make ads for yourself; if you deliver information, you might earn the consumer’s trust long enough to win the sale.