Advertising Quotes

Advertising is the principal reason why the business person has come to inherit the earth. -James R. Adams

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

An advertising agency is 85 percent confusion and 15 percent commission. -Fred A. Allen

I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things. -Archibishop of Canterbury

Advertising is the very essence of democracy. -Bruce Barton

Watteau is no less an artist for having painted a fascia board while Sainsbury's is no less effective a business for producing advertisements which entertain and educate instead of condescending and exploiting. -Stephen Bayley

Telling lies does not work in advertising. -Tim Bell

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

In advertising, not to be different is virtual suicide. -William Bernbach

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

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

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

Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read. -Leo Burnett

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

Sanely applied advertising could remake the world. -Stuart Chase

You start losing a client the moment you get it. -Jay Chiat

How big can we get before we get bad? -Jay Chiat

My real talent was for losing clients. -Jay Chiat

Now that I'm a client, I understand what a jerk I was. -Jay Chiat

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

The very first law in advertising is to avoid the concrete promise and cultivate the delightfully vague. -Bill Cosby

Advertising is the most fun you can have with your clothes on. -Jerry Della Femina

You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements. -Norman Douglas

The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself. -Peter Drucker

The more facts you tell, the more you sell. An advertisement's chance for success invariably increases as the number of pertinent merchandise facts included in the ad increases. -Dr. Charles Edwards

'Be comfortable with who you are', reads the headline on the Hush Puppies poster. Are they mad? If people were comfortable with who they were, they'd never buy any products except the ones they needed, and then where would the advertising industry be? -Mark Edwards

Advertising is a racket...its constructive contribution to humanity is exactly minus zero. -F. Scott Fitzgerald

We grew up founding our dreams on the infinite promise of American advertising. I still believe that one can learn to play the piano by mail and that mud will give you a perfect complexion. -Zelda Fitzgerald

How about this for a headline for tomorrow's paper? French fries. -James French

That's the kind of ad I like, facts, facts, facts. -Samuel Goldwyn