Advertising Quotations

"It has been found that the less an advertisement looks like an advertisement, and the more it looks like an editorial, the more readers stop, look and read. Therefore, study the graphics used by editors and imitate them. Study the graphics used in advertisements, and avoid them."

David Ogilvy

"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 

"A viewer who skips the advertising is the moral equivalent of a shoplifter."

Nicholas Johnson

"No one reads the papers for the adverts."

Me

"I have always believed that writing advertisements is the second most profitable form of writing. The first, of course, is ransom notes..."

Philip Dusenberry

"Advertising doesn't create a product advantage. It can only convey it."

William Bernbach

"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."

Francis Scott Fitzgerald

"Advertising is fundamentally persuasion and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art."

William Bernbach

"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 

"Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things."

David Ogilvy

"Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper."

Mark Twain

"Advertising is salesmanship mass produced. No one would bother to use advertising if he could talk to all his prospects face-to-face. But he can't."

Morris Hite

"Advertising is the ability to sense, interpret... to put the very heart throbs of a business into type, paper and ink."

Leo Burnett

"Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don't have for something they don't need."

Will Rogers 

"Advertising is the art of making whole lies out of half truths."

Edgar A. Shoaff 

"Advertising is the greatest art form of the 20th century."

Marshall McLuhan

"Advertising is the most fun you can have with your clothes on."

Bill Cosby

"Advertising is the principal reason why the business man has come to inherit the earth."

James Randolph Adams

"I do not read advertisements - I would spend all my time wanting things"

Franz Kafka

"Advertising is the very essence of democracy."

Anton Chekhov 

"Advertising is what you do when you can't go see somebody. That's all it is."

Fairfax Cone

"Advertising moves people toward goods; merchandising moves goods toward people."

Morris Hite

"Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals."

David Ogilvy

"Advertising practitioners are interpreters. But unlike foreign language interpreters, adpeople must constantly learn new languages. They must understand the language of each new product, and speak the language of each new target audience."

Jef I. Richards

"Advertising says to people, 'Here's what we've got. Here's what it will do for you. Here's how to get it.'"

Leo Burnett

"Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement."

Samuel Johnson

"Advertising: the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it."

Stephen Leacock 

"There is no advertisement as powerful as a positive reputation traveling fast."

Brian Koslow

"Asked about the power of advertising in research surveys, most agree that it works, but not on them."

Eric Clark

"Creativity is an advertising agency's most valuable asset, because it is the rarest."

Jef I. Richards

"Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise"

Ted Turner

"Good advertising does not just circulate information. It penetrates the public mind with desires and belief."

Leo Burnett

"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half."

John Wanamaker  

"I am one who believes that one of the greatest dangers of advertising is not that of misleading people, but that of boring them to death."

Leo Burnett

"I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information."

David Ogilvy

"I have learned that you can't have good advertising without a good client, that you can't keep a good client without good advertising, and no client will ever buy better advertising than he understands or has an appetite for."

Leo Burnett

"I know of a brewer who sells more of his beer to the people who never see his advertising than to the people who see it every week. Bad advertising can unsell a product."

David Ogilvy 

"Never write an advertisement which you wouldn't want your family to read. You wouldn't tell lies to your own wife. Don't tell them to mine."

David Ogilvy

"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

"If advertising had a little more respect for the public, the public would have a lot more respect for advertising."

James Randolph Adams

"In advertising, not to be different is virtual suicide."

William Bernbach

"In advertising, sex sells. But only if you're selling sex."

Jef I. Richards

"In good times, people want to advertise; in bad times, they have to."

Bruce Barton

"In our factory, we make lipstick. In our advertising, we sell hope."

Peter Nivio Zarlenga

"The right name is an advertisement in itself."

Claude C. Hopkins

"It is flagrantly dishonest for an advertising agent to urge consumers to buy a product which he would not allow his own wife to buy."

David Ogilvy

"It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night. I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea."

David Ogilvy

"A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself."

David Ogilvy

"It takes good clients to make a good advertising agency. Regardless of how much talent an ad agency may have, it is ineffective without good products and services to advertise."

Morris Hite

"Kodak sells film, but they don't advertise film. They advertise memories."

Theodore Parker

"Managing an advertising agency isn't all beer and skittles. After fourteen years of it, I have come to the conclusion that the top man has one principle responsibility: to provide an atmosphere in which creative mavericks can do useful work."

David Ogilvy

"Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising."

Mark Twain

"Mass demand has been created almost entirely through the development of advertising."

Calvin Coolidge

"Much of the messy advertising you see on television today is the product of committees. Committees can criticize advertisements, but they should never be allowed to create them."

David Ogilvy

"News is what somebody, somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising."

Lord Northcliffe

"You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements."

George Norman Douglas 

"Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn't sell much of anything."

David Ogilvy

"No company that markets products or services to the consumer can remain a leader in its field without a deep-seated commitment to advertising."

Edwin L. Artzt

"People have romantic notions about television. In the highest realms they think it's some sort of art medium, and it's not. Others think it's an entertainment medium, it's not that either. It's an advertising medium. It's a method to deliver advertising like a cigarette is a method to deliver nicotine."

Bill Maher

"Political advertising ought to be stopped. It's the only really dishonest kind of advertising that's left. It's totally dishonest."

David Ogilvy

"Rarely have I seen any really great advertising created without a certain amount of confusion, throw-aways, bent noses, irritation and downright cursedness."

Leo Burnett

"Society drives people crazy with lust and calls it advertising."

John Lahr

"The ad in the paper said 'Big Sale. Last Week.' Why advertise? I already missed it. They're just rubbing it in."

Yakov Smirnoff

"The business that considers itself immune to the necessity for advertising sooner or later finds itself immune to business."

Derby Brown

"Advertisements may be evaluated scientifically; they cannot be created scientifically."

Leo Bogart

"The Death of Advertising? I think that's in the book of Revelation. It's the day when people everywhere become satisfied with their weight, their hair, their skin, their wardrobe, and their aroma."

Jef I. Richards

"The greatest thing to be achieved in advertising, in my opinion, is believability, and nothing is more believable than the product itself."

Leo Burnett

"The man who stops advertising to save money is like the man who stops the clock to save time"

Anonymous

"The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be."

David Ogilvy

"The most common trouble with advertising is that it tries too hard to impress people."

James Randolph Adams

"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

"The most powerful element in advertising is the truth."

William Bernbach

"The novice in advertising frequently gives the public credit, for too much intelligence."

Unknown

"The product that will not sell without advertising will not sell profitably with advertising."

Albert Lasker

"The relationship between a manufacturer and his advertising agency is almost as intimate as the relationship between a patient and his doctor."

Anonymous

"The simplest definition of advertising, and one that will probably meet the test of critical examination, is that advertising is selling in print."

Daniel Starch

"There are very few men of genius in advertising agencies. But we need all we can find. Almost without exception they are disagreeable. Don't destroy them. They lay golden eggs."

David Ogilvy

"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

"There is a huge difference between journalism and advertising. Journalism aspires to truth. Advertising is regulated for truth. I'll put the accuracy of the average ad in this country up against the average news story any time."

Jef I. Richards

"There is more money wasted in advertising by underspending than by overspending. Years ago someone said that underspending in advertising is like buying a ticket halfway to Europe. You've spent your money but you never get there."

Morris Hite

"There is no such thing as a Mass Mind. The Mass Audience is made up of individuals, and good advertising is written always from one person to another. When it is aimed at millions it rarely moves anyone."

Fairfax Cone

"There is no such thing as national advertising. All advertising is local and personal. It's one man or woman reading one newspaper in the kitchen or watching TV in the den."

Morris Hite

"What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form."

David Ogilvy

"When executing advertising, it's best to think of yourself as an uninvited guest in the living room of a prospect who has the magical power to make you disappear instantly."

John O'Toole

"While it may be true that the best advertising is word-of-mouth, never lose sight of the fact it also can be the worst advertising."

Jef I. Richards

"Yes, I sell people things they don't need. I can't, however, sell them something they don't want. Even with advertising. Even if I were of a mind to."

John O'Toole

"You can fool all the people all the time if the advertising is right and the budget is big enough."

Joseph E. Levine