Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
In advertising, not to be different is virtual suicide.
—William Bernbach (1911–82) American Advertising Executive
History will see advertising as one of the real evil things of our time. It is stimulating people constantly to want things, want this, want that.
—Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–90) English Journalist, Author, Media Personality, Satirist
The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.
—Peter Drucker (1909–2005) Austrian-born Management Consultant
Advertising is one of the few callings in which it is advisable to pay attention to someone else’s business.
—Howard W. Newton
The trouble with us in America isn’t that the poetry of life has turned to prose, but that it has turned to advertising copy.
—Louis Kronenberger (1904–80) American Drama, Literary Critic
Political advertising ought to be stopped. It’s the only really dishonest kind of advertising that’s left. It’s totally dishonest.
—David Ogilvy (1911–99) British-American Advertising Executive
Living in an age of advertisement, we are perpetually disillusioned. The perfect life is spread before us every day, but it changes and withers at a touch.
—J. B. Priestley (1894–1984) English Novelist, Playwright, Critic
Advertising is the mother of trade.
—Japanese Proverb
Advertising is fundamentally persuasion and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art.
—William Bernbach (1911–82) American Advertising Executive
The trade of advertising is now so near perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement. But as every art ought to be exercised in due subordination to the public good, I cannot but propose it as a moral question to these masters of the public ear, whether they do not sometimes play too wantonly with our passions.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Those who prefer their English sloppy have only themselves to thank if the advertisement writer uses his mastery of vocabulary and syntax to mislead their weak minds.
—Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) British Crime Writer
There is no need for advertisements to look like advertisements. If you make them look like editorial pages, you will attract about 50 per cent more readers.
—David Ogilvy (1911–99) British-American Advertising Executive
Some years before birth, advertise for a couple of parents both belonging to long-lived families.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
The art of advertisement, after the American manner, has introduced into all our life such a lavish use of superlatives, that no standard of value whatever is intact.
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957) English Novelist, Painter, Critic
As advertising blather becomes the nation’s normal idiom, language becomes printed noise.
—George Will (b.1941) American Columnist, Journalist, Writer
In good times, people want to advertise; in bad times, they have to.
—Bruce Fairchild Barton (1886–1967) American Author, Advertising Executive, Politician
Good wine needs no bush, and perhaps products that people really want need no hard-sell or soft-sell TV push. Why not? Look at pot.
—Ogden Nash (1902–71) American Writer of Sophisticated Light Verse
I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information.
—David Ogilvy (1911–99) British-American Advertising Executive
If you are writing about baloney, don’t try and make it Cornish hen, because that’s the worst kind of baloney there is. Just make it darn good baloney.
—Leo Burnett (1891–1971) American Advertising Executive
Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read.
—Leo Burnett (1891–1971) American Advertising Executive
Ideally, advertising aims at the goal of a programmed harmony among all human impulses and aspirations and endeavors. Using handicraft methods, it stretches out toward the ultimate electronic goal of a collective consciousness.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
We read advertisements to discover and enlarge our desires. We are always ready—even eager—to discover, from the announcement of a new product, what we have all along wanted without really knowing it.
—Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American Historian, Academic, Attorney, Writer
Until the rise of American advertising, it never occurred to anyone anywhere in the world that the teenager was a captive in a hostile world of adults.
—Gore Vidal (1925–48) American Novelist, Essayist, Journalist, Playwright
Advertising is the life of trade.
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American Head of State, Lawyer
Remove advertising, disable a person or firm from proclaiming its wares and their merits, and the whole of society and of the economy is transformed. The enemies of advertising are the enemies of freedom.
—Enoch Powell (1912–98) English Conservative Politician, Scholar
I’ve learned any fool can write a bad ad, but it takes a real genius to keep his hands off a good one.
—Leo Burnett (1891–1971) American Advertising Executive
Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don’t have for something they don’t need.
—Will Rogers (1879–1935) American Actor, Rancher, Humorist
Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.
—David Ogilvy (1911–99) British-American Advertising Executive
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
The man who stops advertising to save money is like the man who stops the clock to save time
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
Advertising is the principal reason why the businessman has come to inherit the earth.
—James Randolph Adams (1898–1956) American Advertising Executive
As we turn through the pages of the press and the periodicals, as we catch the flash of billboards along the railroads and the highways, all of which have become enormous vehicles of the advertising art, I doubt if we realize at all the impressive part that these displays are coming more and more to play in modern life…
We see that basically it is that of education…It makes new thoughts, new desires, new actions…Rightfully applied, it is the method by which desire is created for better things. Desire, in turn, is the crucial element separating the civilized from the uncivilized. The uncivilized make little progress because they have few desires. The inhabitants of our country are stimulated to new wants in all directions. In order to satisfy their constantly increasing desires, they necessarily expand their productive powers. They create more wealth because it is only by that method that they can satisfy their wants. It is this constantly enlarging circle that represents the increasing circle of civilization.
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American Head of State, Lawyer
Advertising is the greatest art form of the twentieth century.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
I warn you against believing that advertising is a science.
—William Bernbach (1911–82) American Advertising Executive
That’s the kind of ad I like: facts, facts, facts.
—Samuel Goldwyn (1879–1974) Polish-born American Film Producer, Businessperson
The great art in writing advertisements is the finding out of a proper method to catch the reader’s eye; without which, a good thing may pass over unobserved, or lost among commissions of bankrupt.
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
Advertising is an environmental striptease for a world of abundance.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
If a fellow wants to be a nobody in the business world, let him neglect sending the mail man to somebody on his behalf.
—Charles F. Kettering (1876–1958) American Inventor, Entrepreneur, Businessperson
Advertising is the ability to sense, interpret … to put the very heart throbs of a business into type, paper and ink.
—Leo Burnett (1891–1971) American Advertising Executive
The advertisements are the most truthful part of a newspaper.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
One ad is worth more to a paper than forty editorials.
—Will Rogers (1879–1935) American Actor, Rancher, Humorist
Seeing a murder on television can help work off one’s antagonisms. And if you haven’t any antagonisms, the commercials will give you some.
—Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) British-born American Film Director, Film Producer
An advertising agency is 85 percent confusion and 15 percent commission.
—Fred Allen (1894–1956) American Humorist, Radio Personality
Advertising ministers to the spiritual side of trade.
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American Head of State, Lawyer
The most important word in the vocabulary of advertising is test. If you pretest your product with consumers, and pretest your advertising, you will do well in the marketplace.
—David Ogilvy (1911–99) British-American Advertising Executive
Advertisements in a newspaper are more full of knowledge in respect to what is going on in a community than the editorial columns are.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
The secret of all effective originality in advertising is not the creation of new and tricky words and pictures, but one of putting familiar words and pictures into new relationships.
—Leo Burnett (1891–1971) American Advertising Executive
Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless.
—Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) American Novelist, Short-Story Writer