Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
One ad is worth more to a paper than forty editorials.
—Will Rogers (1879–1935) American Actor, Rancher, Humorist
I warn you against believing that advertising is a science.
—William Bernbach (1911–82) 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
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
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
Advertising: the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it.
—Stephen Leacock (1869–1944) Canadian Political Scientist, Humorist
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
Advertisements are now so numerous that they are very negligently perused, and it is therefore become necessary to gain attention by magnificence of promises and by eloquence sometimes sublime and sometimes pathetic
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Advertising is an environmental striptease for a world of abundance.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
The greatest thing to be achieved in advertising, in my opinion, is believability, and nothing is more believable than the product itself.
—Leo Burnett (1891–1971) American Advertising Executive
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
A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.
—David Ogilvy (1911–99) British-American Advertising Executive
What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it.
—David Ogilvy (1911–99) British-American Advertising Executive
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
The sole purpose of business is service. The sole purpose of advertising is explaining the service which business renders.
—Leo Burnett (1891–1971) American Advertising Executive
Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things.
—David Ogilvy (1911–99) British-American Advertising Executive
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
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
Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.
—David Ogilvy (1911–99) British-American Advertising Executive
If advertisers spent the same amount of money on improving their products as they do on advertising then they wouldn’t have to advertise them.
—Will Rogers (1879–1935) American Actor, Rancher, Humorist
In advertising, not to be different is virtual suicide.
—William Bernbach (1911–82) American Advertising Executive
Advertising is not merely an assembly of competing messages; it is a language itself which is always being used to make the same general proposal
—John Berger (1926–2017) English Art Critic, Novelist
Advertising is the principal reason why the businessman has come to inherit the earth.
—James Randolph Adams (1898–1956) American Advertising Executive
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
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
Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
An advertising agency is 85 percent confusion and 15 percent commission.
—Fred Allen (1894–1956) American Humorist, Radio Personality
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
The modern little red riding hood, reared on singing commercials, has no objections to being eaten by the wolf.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
The advertisements are the most truthful part of a newspaper.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
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 a racket, like the movies and the brokerage business. You cannot be honest without admitting that its constructive contribution to humanity is exactly minus zero.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American Novelist
The most common trouble with advertising is that it tries too hard to impress people.
—James Randolph Adams (1898–1956) American Advertising Executive
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
Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
The advertiser is the over rewarded court jester and court pander at the democratic court.
—Joseph Wood Krutch (1893–1970) American Writer, Critic, Naturalist
Advertising is the greatest art form of the twentieth century.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
There is a great deal of advertising that is much better than the product. When that happens, all that the good advertising will do is put you out of business faster.
—Jerry Della Femina (b.1936) American Advertising Executive
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
The very first law in advertising is to avoid the concrete promise and cultivate the delightfully vague.
—Bill Cosby (b.1937) American Actor, Comedian, Activist, Producer, Author
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
It is pretty obvious that the debasement of the human mind caused by a constant flow of fraudulent advertising is no trivial thing. There is more than one way to conquer a country.
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) American Novelist
Advertising is one of the few callings in which it is advisable to pay attention to someone else’s business.
—Howard W. Newton
I have discovered the most exciting, the most arduous literary form of all, the most difficult to master, the most pregnant in curious possibilities. I mean the advertisement. It is far easier to write ten passably effective Sonnets, good enough to take in the not too inquiring critic, than one effective advertisement that will take in a few thousand of the uncritical buying public.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
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
Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read.
—Leo Burnett (1891–1971) American Advertising Executive
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
What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form.
—David Ogilvy (1911–99) British-American Advertising Executive
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