Quotes about Advertising

If a newspaper, a radio station or a TV station doesn't please advertisers, it disappears. It exists to make you (the marketer) happy.

That's the reason the medium (and its rules) exist. To please the advertisers.

But the Net is different.

It wasn't invented by business people, and it doesn't exist to help your company make money.

It's entirely possible it could be used that way, but it doesn't owe you anything. The question to ask isn't, "but how does this help me?" as if you have some sort of say in the matter. You don't get a vote on whether Google succeeds or whether your customers erect spam filters.

The question to ask is, "how are people (the people I need to reach, interact with and tell stories to) going to use this new power and how can I help them achieve their goals?"

At the end of the day, great advertising is just like great moviemaking. No great research has ever made a movie; no great research has ever made a television show. You can tweak things, see if something is working a certain way, so yes, research can test "Is this communicating what I think it communicates?" You might think it does, but if 20 people say, "I don't get it," well, you've got to pay attention to that. But you can't listen if 20 people go, "I think it's this" or "You should do this" or "I like this." The best creative products—and this goes for television programming also, this goes for news organizations—use research appropriately and intelligently, but give me that great gut every time. And that's what separates the men from the boys.

A good ad is one simple idea, with humanity in it, that connects with consumers, that represents the value system of a company and then can connect it with the consumer. We always say a brand is set of shared values. So if you can simply demonstrate your value system as a brand, so that a consumer could say, "Ah, our values line up. I vote for you, brand!" that's a good ad.

I'm not saying that advertising is going away. But the balance is shifting. If today the successful recipe is to put 70 percent of your energy into shouting about your service and 30 percent into making it great, over the next 20 years I think that's going to invert.

Traditional sales and marketing involves increasing market shares, which means selling as much of your product as you can to as many customers as possible. One-to-one marketing involves driving for a share of customer, which means ensuring that each individual customer who buys your product buys more product, buys only your brand, and is happy using your product instead of another to solve his problem. The true, current value of any one customer is a function of the customer's future purchases, across all the product lines, brands, and services offered by you.

The other way to get married is a lot more fun, a lot more rational, and a lot more successful. It's called dating.

A Permission Marketer goes on a date. If it goes well, the two of them go on another date. And then another. Until, after ten or twelve dates, both sides can really communicate with each other about their needs and desires. After twenty dates they meet each other's families. Finally, after three or four months of dating, the Permission Marketer proposes marriage.

Permission Marketing is just like dating. It turns stranger into friends and friends into lifetime customers. Many of the rules of dating apply, and so do many of the benefits.

What is the difference between unethical and ethical advertising? Unethical advertising uses falsehoods to deceive the public; ethical advertising uses truth to deceive the public.

When trade grew slack, and notes fell due, The merchant's face grew long and blue; His dreams were troubled through the night With sheriff bailiffs all in sight. At this his wife unto him said "Rise up at once, get out of bed, And get your paper, ink, and pen, And advertise to all good men." He did as his good wife advised, And in the papers advertised. Crowds came and bought of all he had; His notes were paid, his dreams were glad; And he will tell you to this day, How well did printer's ink repay.

A message regarding the annual convention of the Advertising Federation of America in NYC, June 14-18, 1931. Advertising has illuminated the path of progress. . . . In building up desire, advertising has spurred new endeavors. It is their creative work, their dynamic presentations of products, their ability to teach and educate which have made each of us desire better things. And in the fulfillment of our desires, we have reached for and attained higher pinnacles in living standards and a clearer conception of the values of life itself.

In contemporary American public culture, the legacy of the consumer revolution of the 1960s is unmistakable. Today, there are few things more beloved of our masses than the figure of the cultural rebel, the defiant individualist resisting the mandates of the machine civilization. Whether he is an athlete decked out in a mowhawk and multiple-pierced ears, a policeman who plays by his own rules, an actor on a motorcycle, a soldier of fortune with explosive bow and arrow, or a rock star in leather jacket and sunglasses, the rebel has become the paramount cliché of our popular entertainment, and the pre-eminent symbol of the system he is supposed to be subverting. In advertising especially, he rules supreme

Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory.

Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing, but nobody else does.

I saw a subliminal advertising executive, but only for a second.

Some time ago a member of my family sent to me a critical article written by Mr. Edmund Fuller in a publication called Saturday Review. The criticism of the writer is directed against the effort made to satisfy what the author designates as "general religious hunger," with books, articles, and public appearances of nationally advertised individuals, carrying on a propaganda for what is characterized as (these are quotes) "the good life," "peace of mind," "positive thinking," and "successful" or "confident living." What the author objects to most strenuously is not so much that propaganda should be issued for the optimism of "peace of mind" and "positive thinking," but that this psychological optimism should be held out in any form as an interpretation of or a substitute for the real Christian religion.

Advertising may be described as the science of arresting human intelligence long enough to get money from it.

Advertising may be described as the science of stopping human intelligence long enough to get money from it.

Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, especially if the goods are worthless.

It takes more than Capital to swing business. You've got to have the A. I. D. degree to get by-Advertising, Initiative and Dynamics.

If we are to have a stabilized market demand, selling pressure should be maintained . . . perhaps increased . . .at the first sign of a decline in business. I know of no single way business managers can do more to stabilize market demand than through greater stabilization of sales and advertising expenditures.

The trouble with America isn't that the poetry of life has turned to prose, but that it has changed to advertising copy.

Give them quality. That's the best kind of advertising.

The advertising industry is one of our most basic forms of communication and, allegedly, of information. Yet, obviously, much of this ostensible information is not purveyed to inform but to manipulate and to achieve a result - to make somebody think he needs something that very possibly he doesn't need, or to make him think one version of something is better than another version when the ground for such a belief really doesn't exist.

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

The trouble with us in America isn't that the poetry of life has turned to prose, but that it has turned to advertising copy.

Important skills to teach young people in the home: The material processing skills, such as food handling, clothing, laundry, cleaning, taking care of what you have, throwing away or sharing with others what you don't need. The art of handling money. The arts of health management including sex, reproduction, nutrition, exercise, sleep. Mechanical skills, recreational skills, the art of managing time., The art of choosing wisely, (we have almost everything spread out before us and pushed on us by advertising. Do we feel sure that we always know how to choose wisely? The art of communication, the art of love (we need more in our own families, different peoples, cultural groups, races, nations.) The art of controlling our emotions, the art of learning a talent - love of music, and song, a love for church and Christ. The art of honesty, caring for your neighbor, volunteering. The art of studying and learning. (If we can learn all of this in the home before we leave the nest, how can we possibly go wrong.)

Get the confidence of the public and you will have no difficulty in getting their patronage. Inspire your whole force with the right spirit of service; encourage every sign of the true spirit. So display and advertise wares that customers shall buy with understanding. Treat them as guests when they come and when they go, whether or not they buy. Give them all that can be given fairly, on the principle that to him that giveth shall be given. Remember always that the recollection of quality remains long after the price is forgotten. Then your business will prosper by a natural process.

The advertising man is a liaison between the products of business and the mind of the nation. He must know both before he can serve either.

Every one of us, unconsciously, works out a personal philosophy of life, by which we are guided, inspired, and corrected, as time goes on. It is this philosophy by which we measure out our days, and by which we advertise to all about us the man, or woman, that we are. . . . It takes but a brief time to scent the life philosophy of anyone. It is defined in the conversation, in the look of the eye, and in the general mien of the person. It has no hiding place. It's like the perfume of the flower - unseen, but known almost instantly. It is the possession of the successful, and the happy. And it can be greatly embellished by the absorption of ideas and experiences of the useful of this earth.

The difficult tasks to be performed are not the ones that mean physical and mental labor, but the ones that you dislike, are the ones that you do not love. There are unpleasant angles to nearly every important job to be done in this world, but there must be an over all love for doing each, else precious time and effort are uselessly wasted. I shall never forget noting a sign above a construction job that read: "Builder of Difficult Foundations." That man must have loved that calling, else he would not have made a point of advertising the fact!

I'm Nobody! Who are you? Are you - Nobody - Too? Then there's a pair of us? Don't tell! they'd advertise - you know!