Advertisements are of great use to the vulgar. First of all, as they are instruments of ambition. A man that is by no means big enough for the Gazette, may easily creep into the advertisements; by which means we often see an apothecary in the same paper of news with a plenipotentiary, or a running footman with an ambassador.
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
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
Advertising is the principal reason why the businessman has come to inherit the earth.
—James Randolph Adams (1898–1956) American Advertising Executive
Advertising is fundamentally persuasion and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art.
—William Bernbach
Advertising is of the very essence of democracy. An election goes on every minute of the business day across the counters of hundreds of thousands of stores and shops where the customers state their preferences and determine which manufacturer and which product shall be the leader today, and which shall lead tomorrow.
—Bruce Fairchild Barton (1886–1967) American Author, Advertising Executive, 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
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
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
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
In advertising, not to be different is virtual suicide.
—William Bernbach
As a profession advertising is young; as a force it is as old as the world. The first four words ever uttered, “Let there be light,” constitute its charter. All nature is vibrant with its impulse.
—Bruce Fairchild Barton (1886–1967) American Author, Advertising Executive, Politician
Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things.
—David Ogilvy (1911–99) British-American Advertising Executive
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
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 greatest art form of the twentieth century.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
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
Advertising is the genie which is transforming America into a place of comfort, luxury and ease for millions.
—William Allen White (1868–1944) American Editor, Politician, Author
Advertising is one of the few callings in which it is advisable to pay attention to someone else’s business.
—Howard W. Newton
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
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
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
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 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
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
As advertising blather becomes the nation’s normal idiom, language becomes printed noise.
—George Will (b.1941) American Columnist, Journalist, Writer
Advertising: the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it.
—Stephen Leacock (1869–1944) Canadian Political Scientist, Humorist
Advertising is the mother of trade.
—Japanese Proverb
Advertising is an environmental striptease for a world of abundance.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
However far your travels take you, you will never find the girl who smiles out at you from the travel brochure.
—Unknown
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
Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Advertising is the modern substitute for argument; its function is to make the worse appear the better.
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
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
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
Sanely applied advertising could remake the world.
—Stuart Chase (1888–1985) American Economist, Engineer, Author
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
Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
Advertising is the most fun you can have with your clothes on.
—Jerry Della Femina (b.1936) American Advertising Executive
Advertisers are the interpreters of our dreams—Joseph interpreting for Pharaoh. Like the movies, they infect the routine futility of our days with purposeful adventure. Their weapons are our weaknesses: fear, ambition, illness, pride, selfishness, desire, ignorance. And these weapons must be kept as bright as a sword.
—E. B. White (1985–99) American Essayist, Humorist
Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and advertise.
—Laurence J. Peter (1919–90) Canadian-born American Educator, Author
Good things sell themselves; those that are bad have to be advertised.
—African Proverb
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
Good advertising does not just circulate information. It penetrates the public mind with desires and belief.
—Leo Burnett (1891–1971) American Advertising Executive
In good times, people want to advertise; in bad times, they have to.
—Bruce Fairchild Barton (1886–1967) American Author, Advertising Executive, Politician
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
Advertising is a business of words, but advertising agencies are infested with men and women who cannot write. They cannot write advertisements, and they cannot write plans. They are helpless as deaf mutes on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.
—David Ogilvy (1911–99) British-American Advertising Executive
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
Marriage is a good deal like a circus: there is not as much in it as is represented in the advertising
—E. W. Howe (1853–1937) American Novelist, Editor
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