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Advertising Quotes
"Junk is the ideal product... the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy."
225
"News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising."
203
"Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving."
158
"Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things."
102
"Many manufacturers secretly question whether advertising really sells their product, but are vaguely afraid that their competitors might steal a march on them if they stopped."
70
"In advertising not to be different is virtually suicidal."
70
"Advertising generally works to reinforce consumer trends rather than to initiate them."
70
"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."
69
"It is the advertiser who provides the paper for the subscriber. It is not to be disputed, that the publisher of a newspaper in this country, without a very exhaustive advertising support, would receive less reward for his labor than the humblest mechanic."
64
"A viewer who skips the advertising is the moral equivalent of a shoplifter."
64
"The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be."
64
"In the arts, the critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising."
64
"What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it."
63
"Advertising is speech. It's regulated because it's often effective speech."
63
"I can not think of any circumstances in which advertising would not be an evil."
62
"We should remember the campaign advertising will be only a smaller portion of the President's total exposure."
60
"If your advertising goes unnoticed, everything else is academic."
60
"Advertising is, actually, a simple phenomenon in terms of economics. It is merely a substitute for a personal sales force - an extension, if you will, of the merchant who cries aloud his wares."
59
"When air conditioning, escalators, and advertising appeared, shopping expanded its scale, but also limited its spontaneity. And it became much more predictable, almost scientific. What had once been the most surprising became the most manipulated."
58
"A good ad which is not run never produces sales."
58
"Advertising is the 'wonder' in Wonder Bread."
58
"The vice-president of an advertising agency is a bit of executive fungus that forms on a desk that has been exposed to conference."
58
"I have learned that trying to guess what the boss or the client wants is the most debilitating of all influences in the creation of good advertising."
58
"Political advertising ought to be stopped. It's the only really dishonest kind of advertising that's left. It's totally dishonest."
58
"I went out to some advertising agencies and asked if I could do anything."
57
"The headline is the 'ticket on the meat.' Use it to flag down readers who are prospects for the kind of product you are advertising."
56
"What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form."
56
"Advertising doesn't create a product advantage. It can only convey it."
56
"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."
55
"Does advertising corrupt editors? Yes it does, but fewer editors than you may suppose... the vast majority of editors are incorruptible."
53
"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."
53
"Most criticism of advertising is written in ignorance of what actually happens inside these agencies."
53
"Advertising is the very essence of democracy."
53
"Today's smartest advertising style is tomorrow's corn."
52
"Forget words like 'hard sell' and 'soft sell.' That will only confuse you. Just be sure your advertising is saying something with substance, something that will inform and serve the consumer, and be sure you're saying it like it's never been said before."
52
"In the world of commercial speech, tobacco advertising bears the earmarks of an endangered species."
52
"If you ever have the good fortune to create a great advertising campaign, you will soon see another agency steal it. This is irritating, but don't let it worry you; nobody has ever built a brand by imitating somebody else's advertising."
52
"I wish all consumers were as gullible as advertising's biggest critics. Anyone who believes advertising is that powerful will believe almost anything."
51
"I have learned that it is far easier to write a speech about good advertising than it is to write a good ad."
51
"Sanely applied advertising could remake the world."
51
"Advertising has done more to cause the social unrest of the 20th century than any other single factor."
50
"The very first law in advertising is to avoid the concrete promise and cultivate the delightfully vague."
50
"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."
50
"The greatest thing to be achieved in advertising, in my opinion, is believability, and nothing is more believable than the product itself."
50
"I avoid clients for whom advertising is only a marginal factor in their marketing mix. They have an awkward tendency to raid their advertising appropriations whenever they need cash for other purposes."
49
"It used to be that a fellow went on the police force when everything else failed, but today he goes in the advertising game."
49
"It is advertising and the logic of consumerism that governs the depiction of reality in the mass media."
49
"There's so much truly putrid advertising out there it's embarrassing. But not all advertising is bad. Some of it is really quite mediocre."
49
"We have always said that advertising is just the icing on the cake. It is not the cake."
49
"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."
47
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