Success Quote by David Ogilvy

Ogilvy frames the client-agency bond as a medical relationship to smuggle a hard business truth into a moral register: if you take the account, you inherit responsibility for the client’s health. The metaphor isn’t decorative. A doctor’s job is diagnostic, occasionally uncomfortable, and explicitly fiduciary; you’re expected to tell the patient what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. Ogilvy is arguing that good advertising works the same way. An agency can’t just be a vendor of slogans. It has to be trusted with the company’s identity, strategy, and long-term vitality, which means it will inevitably touch nerves: pricing, product quality, distribution, leadership ego.

The subtext is equally blunt: clients can be toxic, and money is not a sufficient anesthetic. “Almost as intimate” hints at the messy closeness of the work - late nights, confidential numbers, internal politics - and also at the potential for malpractice. Take on a client you can’t “live happily with,” and you risk becoming a yes-person, prescribing sugar instead of medicine, burning your team out, and ruining your reputation in the process. Ogilvy’s warning is as much about protecting the agency as it is about serving the client.

Context matters. Ogilvy built his legend in an era when agencies were evolving from space-brokers into strategic partners, selling research-driven persuasion and brand-building at scale. His line reads like a founding document for modern client selection: chemistry and trust aren’t soft factors; they’re the operating conditions for effective work.