[Ads-l] ...anything to say, sing it

[Stephen Goranson]

A Jan. 22 NYT obit for Ginny Redington Dawes, ad jingle composer, included the following:
"...David Ogilvy, a founder of the Ogilvy & Mather agency, was credited with the credo “If you don’t have anything to say, sing it,”"

That may well be a valid attribution. A brief search gave a 17 June 1957 appearance in LA Times 18/1, unattributed, but in an article about early jinglist John Guedel [newspapers.com]

[12 Feb. 1942, Wilsonville Review, a fictional stutterer was advised, "If you [do] have anything to say, sing it."]

sg

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