Quotes about Advertising

Never write an advertisement which you wouldn't want your own family to read. You wouldn't tell lies to your own wife. Don't tell them to mine. Do as you would be done by. If you tell lies about a product, you will be found out -- either by the Government, which will prosecute you, or by the consumer, who will punish you by not buying your product a second time. Good products can be sold by honest advertising. If you don't think the product is good, you have no business to be advertising it.

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

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.

Aldous Huxley, who was once a copywriter, said, 'It is easier to write ten passably effective sonnets than one effective advertisement.' You cannot bore people into buying your product. You can only interest them in buying it.

Sales are a function of product-value and advertising. Promotions cannot produce more than a temporary kink in the sales curve.

Do you think it childish to use a set of written principles to guide the management of an advertising agency? I can only tell you that mine have proved invaluable in keeping a complicated enterprise on course. Profit

Many security analysts still believe that agencies are a poor investment. Not so Warren Buffett, one of the most successful investors in the world. He has taken substantial positions in three publicly held agencies, and is quoted as saying, 'The best business is a royalty on the growth of others, requiring very little capital itself … such as the top international advertising agencies.' If

Most campaigns are too complicated. They reflect a long list of objectives, and try to reconcile the divergent views of too many executives.

It is often charged that advertising can persuade people to buy inferior products. So it can — once. But the consumer perceives that the product is inferior and never buys it again. This causes grave financial loss to the manufacturer, whose profits come from repeat purchases. The best way to increase the sale of a product is to improve the product.

I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information. When I write an advertisement, I don't want you to tell me that you find it 'creative.' I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product.

Tell your prospective client what your weak points are, before he notices them. This will make you more credible when you boast about your strong points.

Sound an alarm! Advertising, not deals, builds brands.